White smokers

Amorphous silica and barite precipitate simultaneously from white smoker in midoceanic ridge hydrothermal system (Edmond et al., 1979). It is inferred that amorphous silica precipitates in the chimney at a later stage than sulfides and sulfates (anhydrite and barite) which constitute chimneys from which black smoker is emerging. 

Ishibashi et al. (1994a) analyzed the chemical composition of white smoker from which anhydrite is precipitating at the North Fiji Ridge and showed that the chloride... 

The pH of hydrothermal solution of white smoker from which anhydrite is precipitating shows very low 2 for Lau Basin Vail Lili fluid. This low pH cannot be explained only by water-rock interaction process. One likely explanation is decreasing of pH due to precipitation of sulfides. The pH decreases by the following reaction,... 

Where fluids discharge from hot springs and mix with seawater, they cool quickly and precipitate clouds of fine-grained minerals. The clouds are commonly black with metal sulfides, giving rise to the term black smokers. Some vents give off clouds of white anhydrite these are known as white smokers. Structures composed of chemical precipitates tend to form at the vents, where the hot fluids discharge into the ocean. The structures can extend upward into the ocean for several meters or more, and are composed largely of anhydrite and, in some cases, sulfide minerals. 

In some locations, high-temperature fluids undergo considerable subsurfece mixing with relatively fresh seawater. This leads to precipitation of the less soluble iron and copper sulfides within the conduits. The fluids discharging into the ocean generally have temperatures less than 400°C and are milky white because of zinc sulfide precipitates. These white smokers also build chimneys, some of which are as much as 13 m high. Because of their lower temperatures, white smokers are typically encrusted with worm... 

Patterson F, Schnoll R, Wileyto E, Pinto A, Epstein L, Shields P, Hawk L, Tyndale R, Benowitz N, Lerman C (2008) Toward Personalized Therapy for Smoking Cessation A Randomized Placebo-controlled Trial of Bupropion. Chn Pharmacol Ther 84(3) 320-325 Perez-Stable EJ, Herrera B, Jacob P 3rd, Benowitz NL (1998) Nicotine metabohsm and intake in black and white smokers. JAMA 280(2) 152-156 Perry RJ, Griffiths W, Dextraze P, Solomon RJ, Trebbin WM (1984) Elevated nicotine levels in patients undergoing hemodialysis. A role in cardiovascular mortality and morbidity Am J Med 76(2) 241-246... 

Muscat, D. G. Scott, S. A. Akerkar, and S. S. Hecht. Differences in the urinary metabolites of the tobacco-specific lung carcinogen 4- (methylnitrosamino) -1 -(3-pyridyl)-l-butanone in black and white smokers. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 1997 6(10) 783-790. NT251 Sanberg, P. R., A. A. Silver, R. D. 

Perez-Stable EJ, Herrera B, Jacob P III, et al. Nicotine metabolism and intake in Black and White smokers. JAMA 1998 280 152-156. 

In the Spring Valley and Shavi Members, sedi-mentological facies (Bickle et al. 1975 Martin et al. 1980 Nisbet et al. 1993 Hunter et al. 1998) vary from beach to an assortment of shallow-water settings. REE patterns from oxide-facies ironstones have strong Eu anomalies, but no Ce anomalies. The Spring Valley and Shavi REE are most simply modelled as sediments deposited from water which included (1) ambient sea water of modem aspect but without a Ce anomaly, as well as (2) an admixed hydrothermal (modern black smoker or white smoker) component. The source of the REE may have been distant. 

In 1996, Methanococcus jannaschii became the first archaeon to have its genome sequenced. It was isolated in 1983 from the sea floor surface of a Pacific thermal vent white smoker off the coast of Baja, California. It is methanogenic (methane producer), thermophilic, strictly anaerobic and autotrophic (uses CO2 as the sole source of cell carbon), and normally lives at about 2400 m below sea level, where the pressure is approximately 230 atmospheres [23],... 

Fig. 13.9 Temperature, pH, SO4 and H2S versus Mg. Symbols indicate measurements of different black and white smoker fluids from the East Pacific Rise 21°N, the TAG site at 26°N Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and the Snakepit hydrothermal field at 23°N Mid-Atlantic Ridge (after Von Damm et al. 1983 and Edmond et al. 1995).

Kormas KA, Tivey MK, Von Damm K, Teske A Bacterial and archaeal phylo-types associated with distinct mineralogical layers of a white smoker spire from a deep-sea hydrothermal vent site (9 degrees N, East Pacific Rise). Environ Microbiol 2006, 8(5) 909-920. 

FIG. 5.2 How rocks might mold flows of energy and matter into materials for life. The white smoker underwater vent on the left contains pores with acid-base gradients green serpentinite in the middle makes bubbles of hydrogen and the black smoker underwater vent on the right may make the biochemical fuel pyruvate. 

If that iron was dumped a few hundred miles south, off the Washington and Oregon coast, some of the dead, iron-bloated algae would have drifted down past another amazing formation of iron. Here is a hot, bubbling ocean vent with spires like those at the white smokers, but dark as cast-iron and caked with yellow sulfur. 

The rocks here are darker, with more transition metals such as iron and nickel, so these are called black smokers in contrast to the cooler, alkahne white smokers of Clue 3. Black smokers are more chemically intense than white, in both good and bad ways. Rich lodes of copper, zinc, gold, and iron are deposited here, mostly paired with sulfur atoms as sulfides (and companies are looking to mine the results). Nanoparticles of pyrite, the same arrangement of iron sulfide found in protein electron wires, float around in abundance. 

As the years go by, these clues should converge. This may already be happening. Metal sulfides could produce metabolites at white smokers ( 3) like they do at black smokers ( 4). Nucleotide synthesis ( 6) may succeed under the hot springs conditions ( 5) that also have a chemical profile that matches life s biochemical profile. Rock compartments ( 2) show up in clue after clue. If the clues continue to overlap, they may eventually converge. Even the metabolism first and replication first camps may converge if conditions are found that can make RNA strands at white smokers, black smokers, or hot springs. 

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