CHAMPAIGN, Ill., Sept. 24 (UPI) -- A team of scientists has discovered the movement of warmed sea water off Costa Rica is greater than in mid-Pacific volcanic ridges.
The U.S., Canadian and German researchers said their discovery suggests marine life might exist in a part of the ocean once considered barren.
University of Illinois Professor Carol Stein, a member of the research team, said the scientists focused on an area between 50 miles and 150 miles off Costa Rica where the sea floor, some two miles deep, is marked by about 10 widely separated outcrops, or mounts, rising from sediment covering crust made of volcanic rock some 20 million to 25 million years old.
Stein and colleagues found warm seawater on the cold ocean floor is flowing through cracks and crevices faster and in greater quantity -- although not as hot -- as what's typically found at mid-ocean ridges formed by rising lava.
"The sea floor may not be quite as much of a desert even as we thought maybe 20 or 10 years ago, but rather there may be a lot of locations … where there's a lot more biological activity," Stein said.
The research appeared in a letter printed in Nature Geoscience.
