78 million years ago, a 1.6 km asteroid slammed into what is now Finland, creating a crater 23 km (14 mi) wide and 750 m deep. The catastrophic impact created a fractured hydrothermal system in the shattered bedrock under the crater.
At 11.1 square kilometers (4.3 square miles), the newly discovered hydrothermal field is over a hundred times larger than its Atlantic counterpart.
Japanese researchers have uncovered inorganic nanostructures around deep-ocean hydrothermal vents that closely resemble key molecules involved in life processes.
We’ve known about the vents above for a long time, but this is basically a completely new ecosystem below.
