CONTACT: Sandra Hines
University of Washington
206-543-2580
shines@u.washington.edu
DATE:April 2003

For news media use only. We plan to add a few more images as they become available from the researchers at sea.

Lost City locator map
Lost City is located about 1,500 miles east of South Florida, at about 30 degrees 7 minutes north latitude and 42 degrees 7 minutes west longitude. It is on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, one of the world's largest undersea mountain ranges at a length of nearly 6, 200 miles.
Graphic credit: University of Washington

Lost City chimney
The carbonate structures at the Lost City Field include this chimney more than 30 feet in height. The white, sinuous spine is freshly deposited carbonate material. The top shows evidence of collapse and re-growth, as indicated by the small newly developed cone on its top. (Appeared among images on cover of Nature, July 12, 2002, vol. 412)
Photo credit: University of Washington

Deborah Kelley with sample
University of Washington oceanographer Deborah Kelley contrasts the white porous (almost wasp-nest-like) texture of a sample from the Lost City's carbonate chimneys with a sample from the sulfide chimneys studied since the 1970s.
Photo credit: University of Washington

Carbonate structures creamy in color
A 3-foot-wide ledge or flange made of carbonate juts out from the side of a 160-foot chimney in the Lost City hydrothermal vent field. The chimney and flange are made of minerals dissolved in 160 F fluids that flow out of the seafloor and then precipitate when the fluids hit the icy cold seawater.
Photo credit: University of Washington

Flange on 18-story chimney
Collecting samples from a 6-foot-wide flange, or ledge, growing from the side of the 18-story carbonate chimney in the Lost City Field reveals an opening into the hollow white interior of the flange from which warm vent fluids escape in a shimmering curtain.
Photo credit: University of Washington

Contrast with black smoker
Scientists have been studying black-smoker hydrothermal vents since the 1970s. The dark, mottled mix of sulfide minerals contrasts with the white, cream and gray carbonate chimneys seen at the Lost City hydrothermal vent field.
Photo credit: University of Washington

Atlantis Massif map
The Atlantis Massif is west of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and north of the Atlantis Fracture Zone. The Lost City Field is on a terrace on the side of the mountain, between 2,300 and 2,600 feet below the sea surface.
Graphic credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography