Some other notable things you will see on the submarine tours are hydrothermal vents, underwater volcanoes, seamounts, and the rift valley. Hydrothermal vents are a crack in the seafloor in which sea water trickles in. This water then heats up and exits the cracl carrying metals and other minerals out. These erals build up and create these hydro- thermal vents, around which a variety of organisms have been recently found to live. There are two types of hydrothermal vents, white smokers and black smokers, which are distinguished by the minerals carried by the! 'TMid-ocean ridges are very geologically active, so there is a lot of volcanic activity, which ‘also can lead to the creation of seamounts and tablemounts. Seamounts are underwater ‘mountains that have a cone-shaped top and blemounts are underwater mountains which have a flat top. | | Cop yunnivr Tablenw Wt a Pees Gers = \o The rift valley is the valley that forms in the. middle of mid-ocean ridges. This is caused by the divergent plate boundary at which two plates are moving in the opposite direction. YY \X a nh ae