The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs may have sparked millions of years of hydrothermal life

Hydrothermal vents are among the strangest ecosystems on Earth: eerie places where the planet’s deep heat and chemicals mingle with ocean water to support thriving networks of bizarre lifeforms that don’t need sunlight to survive. Stranger still, sometimes short-lived versions of these ecosystems form when asteroids slam into Earth—including the space rock that killed off non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago. New evidence published in Communications Earth & Environment suggests that this...