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These hydrothermal vents are energy-rich habitats based on chemosynthesis where microorganisms from the base of the food webs.

Here, microbes play the role of primary producers through chemosynthesis -- similar to the role that plants play on land through photosynthesis.

The hydrothermal organisms, and the entire ecosystem, thrived in pure darkness, converting chemicals in the vent fluid into life-sustaining compounds through a process we now call chemosynthesis.

But these bacteria devour sulfides to generate energy in a process known as chemosynthesis.

The existence of a different kind of life from what we are familiar with depends on a process known as bacterial chemosynthesis.