Life at deep ocean hydrothermal vent sites through geological time: The evidence
in the fossil record
Richard Herrington1 & Crispin Little2
1
The Natural History Museum London, email: r.herrington@nhm.ac.uk
2
University of Leeds
Research into the fossil record of vent communities linked to high-temperature
sulphide-rich vents gives an insight into their importance as both sites of refuge and
rapid adaptation. Some of the vent animals have changed, and new organisms may
have replaced the role of earlier species. Some organisms such as tube worms are
evident at vent sites since the Silurian, but brachiopods, gastropods and bivalves are
to be found to be important at different times since then. The vent sites have provided
evidence of how animals adapted to different environments, and clearly indicate that
communities were established very early on in geological time.
In the earliest known Silurian communities, brachiopods appear to be more common
than bivalves, possibly because brachiopods were the more common group and
therefore more able to colonise the vents than bivalves. Likewise, modern vent sites
are dominated by bivalves and gastropods, which are far more prolific today than in
the past. Hydrothermal vent sites may provide refuges for very unusual organisms
isolated from surface changes which may have led to extinctions of other organisms.
Vents may conversely offer an environment where new species can adapt very
rapidly, coming and going over geological time. Being so ephemeral in nature, vents
turn on and off in less than a million years, and this may also explain the specific
changes in the organisms seen in the fossil assemblages through geological time.