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At the surface water becomes steam at a hundred degrees Centigrade,
在海平面高度，水在100摄氏度时就会蒸发成水蒸气，
but down here under the immense pressure of the ocean, it remains liquid at temperatures as hot as four hundred degrees Centigrade.
但是在海底巨大的压力之下，水即使在400度的高温还是维持在液体状态。
The submersible has to move carefully. Disaster is very close when surrounded by such enormous temperatures and pressures.
潜水艇必须要小心前进。在超高温高压的包围下，意外随时可能发生。
And here, where the very water is loaded with hydrogen sulphides poisonous to normal life processes, they found living creatures.
在这个充满了对一般生物来说是剧毒的高浓度硫化氢的地方，还是发现有生物的踪迹。
Some of the chimneys were encrusted with white tubes.
有些烟囱布满了白色管子。
The tubes were inhabited by a new species of polychaete worm that was exposed to temperatures as high as eighty degrees Centigrade.
这些管子里住的是一种新发现的多毛虫品种，它们暴露在高达80摄氏度的温度下。
No other animal on earth was known to tolerate such high temperatures, so the scientists called these creatures Pompeii worms.
在地球上没有任何已知的动物有这么高温的耐受度，所以科学家叫它们庞贝虫。
But this was just the beginning. Nearby there were chimneys completely covered by whole communities of different organisms.
但这些只是一连串新发现的开始而已。在附近有烟囱完全被生物群体所覆盖。
The bottom of the vent was encrusted with large mussels.
在烟囱口下方布满了大型贻贝。
There were swarms of white crabs, and most spectacular of all dominating the chimney were hundreds of bright red tube worms, each two metres long and four centimetres wide.
还有许多白色螃蟹群居，但是最惊人的还是占去烟囱主要部位的几百只鲜红色管虫，每只都有两公尺长，四公分宽。
Until these creatures were discovered, all life on earth was thought to be dependent on the sun.
一直到这些生物被发现之前，我们一直以为地球上的生物需要阳光才能生存。
But here, in the complete darkness of the deep, they had discovered a rich density of life that clearly derived no energy from the sun.
但是在这个完全黑暗的深海，他们发现了不需依赖阳光的丰富的生物群。
So, what do they live on? The answer was found within the tube worms themselves.
那它们又靠什么维生呢？答案就在管虫身上。
They were packed full of specialised bacteria that are able to derive energy from the sulphides that are pouring from the vents.
管子里面充满了专门将烟囱喷出的硫转化成能源的细菌。
The worms' plumes were bright red with haemoglobin that carries sulphides and oxygen down to the bacteria.
管虫的身体因为充满了血红素而呈鲜红色，血红素会将硫及氧气带给下方的细菌。
These bacterial colonies are the primary source of energy for all the life that lives here.
这些菌丛是这里所有生物的主要能量来源。
The mussels were packed with them just as green plants are the basis of life for animals living in the sun,
贻贝里充满了这些菌丛，就像绿色植物是所有活在阳光下动物的基础一样，
so these bacteria and other microbes are at the foot of the food chain on which over five hundred species depend.
这些细菌处在串起500种以上动物的食物链的最底层。
Crabs and shrimps feed off bacteria, and even try to steal pieces of tube worm plumes.
螃蟹及虾子都以细菌维生，还试着偷袭管虫。
Since the vents were first visited by biologists in 1979, a new species has been described every ten days.
从1979年生物学家第一次造访这些烟囱以来，每十天就发现一个新物种。
At the top of the food chain fish that never stray far from the vents.
在食物链最顶端的鱼类从来不会离开烟囱太远。
But they, or their descendants, will have to move eventually, for we now know that individual vents are rarely active for more than a few decades.
但是它或它们的后代最后还是得迁移，据我们所知，单一烟囱大约只有数十年的活动期。
Such a density of life, living in such harsh conditions in the middle of a vast and otherwise barren abyssal plain astounded the biologists who first saw it.
如此丰饶的生命，如此恶劣的生存条件，就存在这广大荒凉的大洋盆地中央，也震惊了第一个发现这里的生物学家们。
It seemed to them that here was evidence of how life on this planet, which certainly started in the sea, might have begun.
对他们来说这里就是地球上的生命如何从海洋起源的证据。
