Han Peacock wandered expectantly in the trenches, which were already more than 600 meters deep into the water. At this depth, most people really couldn't get there, and he didn't know if the Nautilus could dive into such deep water.
"Haha, is this a Nautilus?" After drilling through three trenches, Han Peacock finally found something that looked very much like a Nautilus.
Looking at the pillar-shaped conch half-buried under some metal ore, Han Peacock burst out laughing.
Although not all of it was exposed, Han Peacock still judged that this was the Nautilus.
"Isn't it alive?" Soon, Peacock Han dug out the nautilus completely. Only then did he realize that it was just an empty shell of a nautilus.
Unexpectedly, a "living fossil" shell is completely preserved here. Its white shell has a smooth surface and is sandwiched with orange-red flame stripes. If you look closely, its growth patterns are very fine, and the whole shape looks like a big snail.
shell.
"Although it's just a shell, it has already given information to the Korean peacock, which shows that there are really nautiluses living here.
The hydrothermal springs on the seabed bring not only metal minerals, but also abundant food to the surrounding creatures. This may be the fundamental reason for the existence of the nautilus.
Looking at the black chimney not far away, Han Peacock slowly approached it. When he got closer, Han Peacock discovered that there was not only one black chimney in this sea area, but a huge group of chimneys composed of countless black chimneys.
The outlet of overflowing seafloor hot springs can often form a black chimney. Due to changes in physical and chemical conditions, minerals containing a variety of metallic elements precipitate on the seafloor, especially around the overflow outlet, which continuously precipitates and rises, forming
A chimney-like landform.
Han Peacock kept getting closer, so he could see some of the black chimneys more clearly. At this time, he discovered that the chimneys here were different in height and thickness. The tall ones could reach more than a hundred meters, and the short ones ranged from a few meters to dozens of meters.
The diameter of the chimney varies depending on the size of the overflow opening. The opening of a small chimney is generally only a few tens of centimeters, while the opening of a large chimney can reach several meters.
There is also a lot of sediment around the vent where the eruption is violent, often forming hillocks, some of which are as high as more than 100 meters.
In fact, under the impact of sea water, it is difficult for the height of the chimney to increase indefinitely, especially those overflow ports that have been inactive for many years. Chimneys often cannot withstand the impact of sea water and collapse.
There are a rich variety and quantity of marine life around the black chimneys. Generally, the temperature of the deep sea is only 0°C, but near the black chimneys where submarine hydrothermal activity is frequent, the water temperature is as high as 350 to 400°C.
Research on modern seafloor black smokestacks began in 1978, when the U.S. manned submarine USS Alvin mined sulfides composed of pyrite, sphalerite and chalcopyrite at the axis of the East Pacific Ridge.
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In 1979, dozens of chimneys emitting black and white smoke were discovered on the seafloor lava at about 2610 to 1650 meters at the same location. About 350% of ore-containing hydrothermal fluid erupted from the chimneys and mixed with the surrounding seawater.
Precipitation occurs and turns into "black smoke". The precipitate is mainly composed of pyrrhotite, pyrite, sphalerite and copper-iron sulfide.
The formation of black smokestacks is mainly related to the thermal circulation of seawater and related metal elements in the oceanic crust.
Due to the high temperature of the newly born oceanic crust, seawater penetrates down along the cracks for several kilometers, heats up in the deep crust, dissolves various metal elements in the surrounding rocks, and then convectively rises along the cracks and erupts on the seafloor.
Due to the difference in composition and temperature between the ore liquid and seawater, dense black smoke is formed. After cooling, sulfide particles accumulate on the seabed and its shallow channels, forming gold, copper, zinc, lead, mercury, manganese, silver, etc.
A metal mineral with important economic value.
Geological surveys in all the world's oceans have discovered the existence of black smokers, mainly concentrated on the newly formed oceanic crust.
Han Peacock used the protective air mask to stir up the turbid seawater around him, trying to find if there were any gold or silver mines here.
However, as soon as his hand touched the sea water, he felt a stinging pain.
"Brine?" Han Peacock immediately retracted his hands. Brine is highly mineralized water and is often used to extract certain chemical raw materials, such as salt, iodine, boron, bromine, etc.
In fact, the activity of submarine hot springs does not necessarily form chimneys. As early as the 1960s, scientists discovered many strange phenomena in the Red Sea, such as high water temperature and salinity, and then high-temperature brine appeared.
"You can directly extract the seawater here to extract minerals, so the mining efficiency will be higher." Looking at the surrounding seawater, Han Peacock felt that deep-sea mining is not too difficult.
There is turbid high-temperature brine around, which is the ooze under your feet. This should be metal ooze. There is brine and metal ooze. Near the black chimneys, there are some strange-shaped things, like dead tree trunks. These should be
The ore is formed when heat erupts from the sea floor and cools.
"It seems that the topography near the black smokestacks is similar!" Han Peacock knew this situation, because in 1967, scientists discovered polymetallic ooze on the seabed formed around hot springs in an ocean abyss.
Since then, a new chapter in human research on modern hydrothermal mineral resources has been opened.
In 1988, Chinese scientists and German scientists jointly inspected the Mariana Trench. They saw through underwater TV that there was something like a dead tree stump on the seafloor rocks about 3,700 meters underwater.
It is 2 meters high and has a diameter ranging from 50 to 70 centimeters. There are lumps, fragments and flower-like things around it. At the exits of these undersea hot springs, many chemical substances have been deposited and accumulated.
They collected 1,000 kilograms of rock samples, which were mainly yellow-brown, with occasional black, gray-white, and blue-green colors.
After chemical analysis and identification, people confirmed that these are the remnants of submarine hydrothermal activity, and most of them are sulfide minerals.
In addition to large amounts of copper, zinc, manganese, cobalt, and nickel, there are also precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum.
Brine and metal ooze are of no use to Korean peacocks, so things like dead tree stumps have become the target of Korean peacocks.
"The red one is hematite? The yellow one is copper ore? It's too hard to be gold ore. This green one is not crystal. It's a pity."
Han Peacock is protected by the air shield emitted by the chaotic space, which isolates the surrounding sea water, so Han Peacock can observe the underwater ores without any scruples.
Hematite is red, vanadium garnet is green, and fluorite is purple. These are easy to distinguish on the seabed.
Regarding the colors of various natural minerals, Han Peacock still knows a bit. In mineralogy, colors are generally divided into three categories: self-color is the inherent color of minerals; other colors refer to colors caused by mixed substances; false colors are due to
Caused by some physical optical process.
For example, the fresh surface of bornite is bronze-red. After oxidation, the oxide film on the surface causes interference of light, resulting in a bluish-violet tint color.
The interior of the mineral contains oriented micro-inclusions. When the mineral is rotated, color changes can occur. Cleavage or cracks in transparent minerals can sometimes cause light interference, resulting in rainbow-like halos, etc.
"The minerals here are really rich. There are all kinds of minerals." After wandering around for a long time, although no high-value natural ores were found, it was still an eye-opener for Han Peacock.
This place is like a natural ore museum. There are all kinds of ores. However, Han Kongque does not know most of them. After all, he is not studying this.
There are so many wonders in the world, and the world of stones is also in a variety of shapes, purples and reds, and the colors are as gorgeous as flowers!
Understanding the mystery of heaven and earth and the essence of Feng Shui contained in stones is like opening a door to understand the world.
Heaven and earth have great beauty without words; stones have great wisdom without words.
Han Peacock had never thought that a simple stone could be so fascinating and refreshing to look at.
"No, these various tree stumps have to be brought back. Although they are all ordinary ores, such ordinary ores are rare in large quantities."
Later, after seeing some representative ores, Han Peacock, who has a collecting habit, collected them all.
Yellow, red, purple, crimson, golden yellow, some rare and beautiful stones were collected one by one by Han Peacock, allowing him to enjoy a visual feast of beautiful stones!
"Hey, this stone is very special!" After wandering around for an unknown amount of time or collecting many stones, Han Peacock stopped in front of a piece of light blue ore.
The reason why Han Kongque noticed it was mainly because the ore was translucent green-blue. This kind of ore was very close to gemstones and could at least be used as semi-precious stone jewelry.
"Is it smithsonite?" For gemstones like this, Han Kongque only knew smithsonite, which is a semi-precious stone jewelry.
The colors of rhozocite include white, gray, yellow (yellow stone), blue, green, pink and brown, etc., and the streaks are white.
This thing is similar to hemimorphite, which is produced in the oxidation zone of lead-zinc sulfide deposits and is generally a product of the oxidation of sphalerite.
Hemimorphite is similar to smithsonite, except that it does not foam when exposed to acid, but can form a colloid.
Usually colorless or light blue, it can also be white, gray, light green, light yellow, brown, brown and other colors, with transparent or translucent glass luster, sometimes pearl luster or diamond luster.
"Since there is rhodochrosite, is there rhodochrosite?" Han Peacock became greedy after discovering a semi-precious stone.
There is no shortage of zinc ore here, and there is no shortage of manganese ore on the seabed. Since rhodochrosite appears here, there is no reason why rhodochrosite should not appear.
Rhodochrosite is also called rhodochrosite jade. The jade has a special pink color, is dense, is heavy when weighed by hand, and decomposes when exposed to dilute hydrochloric acid.
The main identification feature of rhodochrosite is pink color, and there are often white substances distributed in a corrugated shape, so it is not too difficult to distinguish.
Of course, the main reason is that rhodochrosite is very beautiful, whether it is pink or pink, it is very conspicuous. (To be continued.)