CARBON 3: SMOKING LANDS
Deep below the Tyrrhenian Sea lie the Smoking Lands.
These volcanic chimneys, like those in CARBON1, vent carbon dioxide into the surrounding ocean. However, in almost all other ways, these ecosystems are completely different.
First, the depth: they lie at 70 meters below sea level, instead of just 1-2 meters.
Second, they are cold, 17 degrees celsius, as opposed to the hot 40 degree+ water in the Baia Di Levante.
Third, they form actual chimney like structures – growing meters every few decades.
The Smoking Lands were only discovered a few years ago, and they’ve never been microbially explored, until now.
From a boat, you wouldn’t know they were there except for the slight smell of sulfur above the surface, or if you were in just the right spot you might see the carbon dioxide bubbles on your fishfinder.
In spring of 2024, the Two Frontiers Project joined our collaborators at the University of Palermo, as well as some highly technical divers capable of reaching the extreme depth of the chimneys, to sample these unusual ecosystems, again looking for carbon-capturing microbes.
We used this as a chance to optimize our modular field kits, setting up a remote lab on our collaborator’s research vessel.
We successfully collected another round of samples and are sequencing them – alongside the now thousands of others we have on hand – as part of our flagship Carbon Initiative analysis to discover new mechanisms for carbon capture.
