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Endeavour Ridge Marine Protected Area
Canada was the first country to protect a deep-sea hydrothermal vent system.
In 1998 the Endeavour Ridge Hydrothermal Vents, located 250km southwest of Vancouver Island, at a depth of 2,250 meters, were designated as a Marine Protected Area. This designation provides for long-term protection of the vent ecosystem by prohibiting the removal, disturbance, damage, and destruction of anything within the protected area.
Endeavour Ridge is an active seafloor-spreading zone where tectonic plates are diverging, and new oceanic crust is being formed. In these zones, cold sea water percolates downward through the crust where it is heated by the underlying molten lava, eventually emerging through the seafloor as buoyant plumes of particle-rich, superheated fluid. The five known vent fields on the Endeavour Segment are separated along the ridge from one another by about two kilometres. Their associated plumes rise rapidly about 300 metres into the overlying water column. (courtesy of the DFO Endeavour Ridge MPA fact sheet).
To see videos of the Endeavour Ridge hydrothermal vents, click here.
Image credit: OOI Regional Scale Nodes Program at the University of Washington
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Hydrothermal Vent Animals:
 Tubeworms (Ridgeia piscesae) live around the hot vents at Endeavour Ridge. They occur at high densities. Ridgeia has an obligate endosymbiotic relationship with bacteria that oxidize sulfide, which means they acquire all their nutrition from the symbiotic bacteria, and do not otherwise feed. This process is called chemosynthesis.
spider crab ventilating eggs
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 Palm worms and limpets
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*click here for more on hydrothermal vent organisms
Endeavour Ridge Marine Protected Area - Videos
 Deep Sea Laboratory #2: Folger Passage
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