Tubeworms covering Zooarium hydrothermal vent at Magic Mountain hydrothermal field, located on the Southern Explorer Ridge in the North Pacific Ocean, about 150 miles west of Vancouver. This vent is a lower-temperature sulphide chimney, a structure that forms when super-heated seawater, richly charged with metals and volcanic gases, rises into the cold deep ocean from hot regions below the seafloor. The heat and minerals provide an energy source that supports an ecology of organisms, including tubeworms. These marine invertebrates obtain nutrients from the water by symbiosis with bacteria living in their bodies. The bacteria turn inorganic chemicals produced by the vent, such as hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide, into organic molecules. The white part of a tube worm is made of chitin. The red structures (plumes) contain haemoglobin that combines with hydrogen sulphide and transfers it to the bacteria.