But Dr Voight says the experience is a wake-up call to everyone working in the deep ocean.
The deep ocean also inhabits areas that tend to be currently geologically inactive but biologically very active, namely seamounts.
The resulting photosynthetic activity could, in theory, increase the storage of carbon from the atmosphere into the deep ocean.
Hydrothermal vents are among the strangest features of the deep ocean and their existence was not known until the 1970s.
What is going on in the deep ocean is so badly understood that estimates of biodiversity there range from 100, 000 species to 100m.
Furthermore, ecosystems situated in the deep ocean, where biodiversity and habitats often have major value, but are generally not well understood, have virtually no protection at all.
And it's true of drilling in the deep ocean, which, as the 2010 disaster in the Gulf of Mexico showed, we obviously haven't figured out quite yet.
From being a totally unimaginable feature of the deep ocean throughout most of human history to being shown live on global television earlier this week, hydrothermal vents have never been so well understood.
Until very recently the deep ocean remained invisible to scientists, but now the science of our seas is undergoing a revolution, thanks to a vast array of floating oceanic robots known as Argo.
But this is an emerging and highly complex area of science because of the interplay of natural factors and manmade greenhouse gases at a time when a key set of temperatures - in the deep ocean - is still relatively unknown.
Although the Met Office has 1998 as the single warmest year, that coincided with strong El Nino conditions - the warming of surface waters in the eastern Pacific that releases heat stored in the deep ocean into the atmosphere, raising temperatures globally.
These organisms, which have fundamentally different metabolisms to normal microbes, are found in hydrothermal vents on the deep-ocean floor and in rocks and springs hundreds of metres below the surface of the Earth.
BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Antarctica's resources 'at risk'
This fact-filled Guide explores the ocean from the coastal zones to the frozen poles, the deep sea to the open ocean.
What happens in the vast, deep ocean, out of sight and beyond the reach of sunlight and satellites?
It took four searches over the course of nearly two years to locate the bulk of Flight 447's wreckage and the majority of the bodies in a mountain range deep under the ocean.
Research is under way at the National Energy Technology Laboratory on so-called "carbon sequestration" technology that would capture CO2 gas before it is released into the atmosphere and inject it, either deep into the ocean or into the ground.
The proximity of offshore wind in the the Atlantic Ocean to deep demand centers avoids the problems of moving power over long distances and significantly enhances the economic fundamentals of mega projects like those currently being considered in North Carolina.
Specimens have washed ashore on beaches but never before have been filmed in their normal habitat deep in the ocean, researchers say.
High oil prices and dwindling land reserves are pushing oil and gas companies to exploit hydrocarbon reserves that lie deep under the ocean.
But we are having to spend more oil to get oil, as we drill deeper, and drill in the deep water of the ocean.
FORBES: Why Oil Prices Rose in the Spring of 2008 and Will Rise Again
Chavez will also have to pay far more attention to developing offshore gas plays sat deep in the Pacific Ocean rather than monetised into state coffers.
The island nation of Cuba is scrambling to secure access to what it believe to be about 5 billion barrels of oil lying deep under the ocean off its northern coast.
FORBES: Cuba Chases 5 Billion Barrels of Undiscovered Oil; U.S. Groups Respond
Scientists with San Diego biotech firm Diversa have descended into volcanoes in Siberia, plumbed thermal vents 3, 000 feet deep in the Atlantic Ocean and crawled around the humid rain forests of Costa Rica.
"I looked at it as a four-legged stool with one leg very deep in the ocean, " recalls Fluxman, a tanned, toned South African who first came aboard as chief financial officer and chief operating officer, stepping up to chief executive officer six years ago.
Each turbine in the Delaware project is to sit on a pole about 250 feet above the waterline, where the ocean is about 75 feet deep.
The other approach is less risky, and involves removing carbon directly from the atmosphere and burying it in vast ocean storage beds or deep inside the earth.
Right here on Earth, surprisingly hardy life-forms have been found inside hot underground rocks, around scalding volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean, in desiccated Antarctic valleys and deep beneath polar ice.
When the ocean plates sink deep enough, portions are melted by the intense heat generated within the mantle, turning the solid rock into molten magma.
FORBES: 2011 Forecast: World Outperforms U.S., Europe Scuttles
Deep in the South Indian Ocean , these two protected World Heritage sites, a mere 1, 010 sea miles north of Antarctica, are rarely visited, and not at all for the past decade.
应用推荐