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Scientists found adult hydrothermal-vent tubeworms living in fluid-filled cavities beneath lobate lava at one site on the East Pacific Rise. The discovery shows that vent animals can inhabit shallow spaces below the visible seafloor, but it does not establish how widespread these hidden communities are.
Where scientists found the tubeworms
The study site, called Fava Flow Suburbs, is at 9°50′N on the East Pacific Rise, 2,515 metres below the sea surface. In a paper published in Nature Communications on 15 October 2024, Monika Bright, Sabine Gollner and colleagues describe how they lifted lobate lava shelves while attempting an in situ experiment and exposed cavities filled with hydrothermal fluid. The report documents six opened cavities.
“Volcanic cracks” is a vivid shorthand, but the finding was more specific: animals were observed in cavities beneath lava shelves at this one hydrothermal-vent site. The study does not show that worms inhabit volcanic cracks throughout the deep ocean.
Which animals were living below the seafloor?
Sessile tubeworms were present in five of the six cavities. Oasisia alvinae was the most abundant tubeworm in the cavities and grew from their roofs. Specimens observed there had tubes up to 20 centimetres long. Living Riftia pachyptila occurred alongside O. alvinae in two cavities; one contained six Riftia with tubes up to 50 centimetres long. Those lengths describe animals in the sampled cavities, not records for either species overall.
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The researchers also observed snails and other vent animals. Some Riftia had reproductive organs containing sperm or eggs, evidence that the cavity inhabitants included adult animals rather than only larvae. The observations establish animal life inside the cavities that were opened; they do not reveal the total population or full extent of the habitat.
How could vent animals get beneath the lava?
The authors propose that larvae may be drawn into ocean crust with seawater entering a hydrothermal system’s recharge zone. From there, larvae could travel through subseafloor fluid circulation and settle in cavities, cracks or discharge areas. This is a proposed explanation for how animals might reach the hidden habitat—not a journey the team directly observed or tracked.
The paper’s authors say the discovery shows that “the seafloor and subseafloor faunal communities are connected.” That connection matters because the habitat available to vent animals may extend beyond the communities visible on the seabed.
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Why the discovery matters—and what remains unknown
Many hydrothermal-vent animals host dense microbial communities that use reduced chemicals and fix carbon. If vent animals also inhabit spaces beneath the visible seafloor, those habitats may need to be considered when scientists estimate local and regional geochemical fluxes. The study does not establish how extensive these hidden habitats are, so their contribution cannot yet be confidently scaled up from the observations at Fava Flow Suburbs.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteThe central advance is direct evidence of adult vent fauna in shallow, fluid-filled cavities under lava at a deep-sea vent site. It broadens the habitat scientists must consider in vent biology, while leaving the distribution of such communities and the proposed larval pathway open questions.
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