9 North, or Nine North, is a region of hydrothermal vents on the

East Pacific Rise The East Pacific Rise is a mid-ocean rise (termed an oceanic rise and not a mid-ocean ridge due to its higher rate of spreading that results in less elevation increase and more regular terrain), a divergent tectonic plate boundary located alon ...

in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

, 900 kilometers off the coast of

Acapulco, Mexico Acapulco de Juárez (), commonly called Acapulco ( , also , nah, Acapolco), is a city and major seaport in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, south of Mexico City. Acapulco is located on a deep, semicircular bay and has bee ...

; it has been so named by scientists because its latitude is 9°50' N. It was first seen to erupt in 1991 by the deep submersible ''Alvin'' during a survey for the

Ocean Drilling Program The Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) was a multinational effort to explore and study the composition and structure of the Earth's oceanic basins. ODP, which began in 1985, was the successor to the Deep Sea Drilling Project initiated in 1968 by th ...

. In November 1999, scientists, students, education specialists, and

film crew A film crew is a group of people, hired by a production company, for the purpose of producing a film or motion picture. The crew is distinguished from the cast, as the cast are understood to be the actors who appear in front of the camera o ...

s returned to 9 North to see how the biology and landscape had changed over time. IMAX, National Geographic, and BBC film crews have made videos about the

vent Vent or vents may refer to: Science and technology Biology *Vent, the cloaca region of an animal * Vent DNA polymerase, a thermostable DNA polymerase Geology *Hydrothermal vent, a fissure in a planet's surface from which geothermally heated wate ...

s at 9 North, most noticeably ''

Volcanoes of the Deep Sea ''Volcanoes of the Deep Sea'' is a 2003 documentary film in the IMAX format about undersea volcanoes directed by Stephen Low. Production Richard Lutz served as Principal Investigator and Lutz and Peter A. Rona served as Science Directors of the ...

'' (2003). BBC ''

Planet Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surface ...

'' series from 2006 reported that 9 North either extinguished or became inactive during the period that BBC was creating the series. All previously extant forms of life- crustaceans (shrimps, crabs) and tube worms- were observed to have disappeared (either died, or left the site), perhaps signalling the extinction of lifeforms unique to these particular vents.

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:9 North Pacific Ocean Hydrothermal vents