deep sea, especially hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, has had a dramatic influence on perception of life on the seafloor. These chemically "hostile" environments nevertheless support unusually high concentrations of organisms, forming oases of life on the seafloor.

Cold seeps were discovered in 1983 by Dr. Charles Paull in the Gulf of Mexico at a depth of 3,200 meters (10,499 ft).

Only recently have cold seeps been recognized in the fossil record. California's Panoche Hills has the largest set of fossil cold seeps found in the world so far.

Cold seeps have recently been discovered fossilized in ancient rocks. Inside these rounded carbonate lumps are the same kinds of tube worms and bivalves seen in today's ocean. Many ancient shale beds surely have more examples, previously overlooked, waiting to be found.

Cold Seeps in Monterey Bay - A.

methane released from cold seeps reach the atmosphere?? What do cold seeps and hydrothermal vents have in common?? Answers to Other Common QuestionsHow is Cold seeps's gallery? Image:cold seep community.jpg|Tubeworms, soft corals and chemosynthetic mussels at a seep located down on the Florida Escarpment.

Cold seeps are deep-sea environments, usually a few square meters in size, where fluid is released through slow diffusion from the sea floor. Mud volcanoes, which are active areas of fluid seepage, are other extreme environments discovered in the 1990s.

Cold seeps are shallow areas on the ocean floor where gases percolate through underlying rock and sediment layers and emerge on the ocean bottom. The gases found in the seep are methane and sulfur-rich gases and sediments releasing petroleum.

around cold seeps known in 2000. There is a clear relationship between known hydrocarbon discoveries at great depth in the Gulf slope and chemosynthetic communities, hydrocarbon seepage, and authigenic minerals including carbonates at the seafloor (Sassen et al., 1993a and b).

* Cold Seeps discovered 1984 at the base of the Florida Escarpment at 3270 m depth; hypersaline with sulphide and methane seep out onto the sea-floor; temperature is cold, but species composition similar to hot

We have several projects studying cold seeps in the Gulf of Mexico. We collaborate with Dr. Ian MacDonald (Florida State Univeristy), Dr. Peter Girguis (Harvard Univeristy), Dr. Harry Roberts (Louisiana State University), Dr. Chuck Fisher (Penn State University) and Drs.

Deep water cold seeps occur in both passive and active continental margins, at depths ranging between 400 and 8000 m. The continental margin is the slope that extends from the shelf edge (~200 m) to the abyssal plains at 4000 - 6000 m of water-depth.

Cold seeps in the Aleutian subduction zone were found after detecting a methane anomaly only 2 x the background in the bottom water.

Cold seeps - Definition = Tubeworms, soft corals and chemosynthetic mussels at a seep located 3,000 metres down on the Florida Escarpment. Eelpouts, a Galatheid crab and an alvinocarid shrimp feed on mussels damaged during a sampling exercise.