In article ,
Rafael Almeida wrote:
Ivan Kobrinsky wrote:
For this feat they are using completely special light.
Instead of the sun the green sulfur bacteria use the weak
jets of hot sources of the deep sea for their photosynthesis.
Hum... photo-synthesis, photo is greek for light, right? The bacterias
you described seems to use the heat energy to do whatever is done and
not light energy, therefore it couldn't be called photosynthesis, could
it? I'm not a biologist and i don't even know much about it, but that
just seemed wrong.

It seemed strange to me too, but if these hot water jets are as hot as
350C, they would be hot enough to emit some near-infrared and even a
bit of red light by black-body radiation, at the tail end of the curve.

Ivan, do you have any references for this idea that deep ocean vent
bacteria can photosynthesize from this source of light? It's an
interesting idea, and a new one to me. I'd like to read more about it.

I don't think it would be one of the main oxygen source anyway, so it's
a good enough approximation to consider only the oxygen generated by the
things that live right on top of the ocean water. Althought your
considerations are interesting, they might have been posted with a
different subject.

That's true. Btw, Ivan, ignore Cereus. He gets his jollies by trying to
prove he's superior to everybody else here. Arguing with him is pointless
and just gives him more excuses to engage in name-calling and other
childish behaviours. Most of us just ignore him, so he has to wait for
new participants to play with.