In 1977, scientific researchers aboard a submarine dubbed Alvin descended down to the seafloor, where they observed a hydrothermal vent located off the Galapagos Islands. What they saw shocked them. Hydrothermal vents are fissures situated at the ocean bottom, which spit scalding, acidic water out into the surrounding sea. Looking out through the sub's tiny windows, the amazed alien visitors saw thickets of tube worms-some as tall as four feet high-waving in the ocean currents like crimson tulips in the winds of March.
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