You searched for: “vents
vent (verb), vents; vented; venting
1. To express one's feelings or emotions: Susan called up her best friend to vent her anger of how her brother treated her unfairly.
2. To present a person's complaints: Jan vented her displeasure to the store's sale's department because she wanted her money back for the dress which she purchased that didn't fit her daughter properly.
3. To air out something or expose it to fresh air: Jackie hung out her dress to vent it in the cool breeze.
4. Etymology: from Latin ventus, "wind".
Publicly expressing one's grievance.
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This entry is located in the following unit: vent- (page 1)
Word Entries containing the term: “vents
deep-sea vent (s) (noun), deep-sea vents (pl)
A geyser on the sea bottom through which super-hot aqueous solutions rise from the magma beneath the crust; hydrothermal vent: Deep-sea vents create a surrounding system of mineral-rich water that helps to support a distinctive type of ecosystem not found in typical cold-water environments at the same ocean depth.
This entry is located in the following unit: vent- (page 1)
hydrothermal vent (s) (noun), hydrothermal vents (pl)
1. A fissure in the sea bottom through which hot aqueous solutions rise from the magma beneath the crust; a hot spring: Hydrothermal vents are located on the seabed mainly along the central axes of the ridges in mid-ocean.
2. A geyser on the sea bottom through which super-hot aqueous solutions rise from the magma beneath the earth's crust: The hydrothermal vents create a surrounding system of mineral-rich water which helps to support a distinctive type of ecosystem not found in typical cold-water environments at the same ocean depth.

Word Entries at Get Words containing the term: “vents
cold seeps, cold vents
Areas of the ocean floor where hydrogen sulfide, methane and other hydrocarbon-rich fluid seepage occur.
This entry is located in the following unit: Ocean and Deep Sea Terms (page 2)
hydrothermal vents
Fissures on the floor of a sea out of which flows water that has been heated by underlying magma.

The water can be as hot as 400°C (752°F) and usually contains dissolved minerals that precipitate out of them upon contact with the colder seawater, building stacks of minerals, or chimneys.

Hydrothermal vents form an ecosystem for microbes and animals; such as, tubeworms, giant clams, and blind shrimp, that can withstand the hostile environment.

The hottest hydrothermal vents are called black smokers because they spew iron and sulfide which combine to form iron monosulfide, a black compound.

For decades, oceanographers, biologists, and geologists have insisted that the only food for creatures in the deep seafloor primarily came from food particles drifting down from the surface

Until the discovery of a profusion of life at a depth of 2,500 meters (8,202 feet) in February of 1977, scientists were convinced that the deep seafloor, where darkness and cold reign, there was the earth's largest, and least known, ecosystem.

Although there were expeditions with special zoological interests up to the end of the nineteenth century, it was long considered to be a deserted environment.

Oceanographic expeditions sure that in the absence of photosynthetic production, the only food resources available in the lowest levels of the seas were those from the surface, primarily in the form of rains of particles.

So it was assumed that the abyssal plains were populated by animals that were very unusual, few in number, and normally very small.

Such concepts existed until the American submersible named Alvin dived over the Galapagos Ridge and researchers were amazed to find a profusion of life; communities of strange organisms of spectacular sizes and astonishing shapes clustered around warm springs of about ten degrees above the surrounding temperatures at the bottom of the sea.

The very first discovery of the hydrothermal vents in 1977 and the new species of organisms that the researchers found there were named in terms of what they seemed to resemble: the "giant tube worm" the "dandelion", the "spaghetti worm: and the "giant clam".

The discovery of hydrothermal vents raised the curiosity of scientists and how it was possible that a dense group of fauna can prosper in an environment characterized by toxicity, crushing pressures, and a total absence of light.

The explanation for the existence of such life was found to be based on bacteria using the chemical substances belched forth by the chimneys of the vents to synthesize organic matter, and this serves as the basis for the entire hydrothermal food chain.

Further research indicated that bacteria substitute for green plants in that dark world, and chemistry replaces solar energy. The process of primary production is called chemosynthesis, a term that parallels photosynthesis.

—Compiled from and based on information located in
The Deep, The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss by Claire Nouvian;
The University of Chicago Press; Chicago, Illinois; 2007; pages 211-212.
This entry is located in the following unit: Ocean and Deep Sea Terms (page 3)