At the bottom of the ocean, a release of volcanic gases was discovered, turning water into an acidic solution, in which life still flourishes.
The depths of the ocean harbor many terrifying secrets, and scientists have recently uncovered a new one. At a depth of 60 meters, the seabed suddenly begins to bubble, like a huge bottle of champagne - and in each bubble the concentration of carbon dioxide is simply off scale.
One would think that man's careless attitude to nature is again to blame for everything, but this is not so. The source of gas off the coast of the Philippines, in the Soda Springs region, is the activity of underground volcanoes. It is noteworthy that next to this phenomenon, which poisons the water, there is a luxurious coral reef - an amazing example of how well marine ecosystems can adapt even to harsh conditions.
Geophysicist Bayani Cardenas of the University of Texas notes that life thriving in such an environment can be significantly different from what is well known to scientists. Soda Springs, with all the diversity of its flora and fauna, is extremely difficult to study. It's too shallow for deep-diving vehicles, and too deep for divers. The volcano has probably been spewing gas into cracks on the seabed for thousands of years. Scientists believe that the concentration of carbon dioxide in this place is one of the highest on the entire Earth. Measurements have shown that it is 200 times the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.
How can an entire biome survive in such conditions? For marine biologists, this is a big mystery. By the way, in search of the source of radioactive radon found in the waters, the researchers found many points along the coast, thanks to which groundwater enters the ocean. Currently, experts suggest that such "ventilation ducts" can change the chemical composition of the ocean over a fairly large area.
