Case Studies in Earth & Environmental Science Journalism

Black Smokers.

Jump down to Reading List
Jump down to Vent Animals
Jump down to Black Hole Smokers - Origin of Life
- Techinical Articles
- Popular Articles
Jump down to Black Hole Smokers - Mining
- Techinical Articles
- Popular Articles

Schedule

Session 1: Background and Vent Animals.

Session 2: Origins of Life and Vent Mining.

Session 3: Meet at AMNH with Ed Mathez.

Questions to Ponder and Discuss

What are Black Smokers? Why are they significant?
How do the articles written about the discovery of the vent animals in 1979 compare with the articles written about the Pompeii worm in 1998? Is there a change in what is important to report?
Do you see a change in how the scientists are looking at hydrothermal vents and the type of questions they are asking? What do you think are important questions for future scientific endeavors the Alvin or Argo/Jason system might undergo?
How do vent animals differ from other deep-sea animals? How do vent animals in the Pacific compare with vent animals in the Atlantic? What is chemosynthesis and how does it differ from photosynthesis?
What are the theories about how vents are colonized? What are characteristics you would expect to find in the animals using the different methods?
Compare the articles written a year apart The light at the bottom of the ocean by Monastersky (1996) and The light at the bottom of the sea by Flanagan (1997), as well as Radford's 1996 article in The Guardian. Discuss the similarities and differences in these pieces. What did you find interesting in the science articles on the light and Rimicaris exoculata that was not included in any of the popular articles?
Who are the readers for most of the popular articles? What aspects of black smoker vent communities would you focus on if you were writing a story for:
- Your local paper.
- The New York Times (assuming this is not your local paper).
- Scholastic Magazine.
- An in-flight magazine for "Fly High" Airlines (which provides international and domestic flights.
- National Geographic's Millennium Series?

The Origin of Life.

Read the title of the June 6, 1979 Christian Science Monitor article by Lynde McCormick. How does it affect you as a reader? Choose a few titles you particularly like from this selection of articles. What do they tell the reader? What are some titles you feel are ineffective, cliched, trite or even misleading?

Chose one of the popular articles that you could give to someone who had no knowledge of theories on the origin of life. Outline the reason you chose that article. What might you have added (or taken out) to give the article depth of the entire issue at hand?

Look at the quotations found in the September 29, 1996 edition of the Springfield, IL State Journal-Register and the May 4, 1997 Sacramento bee. What quotation strike you as being poignantly effective – and which ones fall flat?

Which articles do a good job of defining archaebacteria and putting it into an evolutionary perspective? Do any articles leave holes in the science and the logic? What do you think might be the cause of this?

Economic Mining.

Do you think it is necessary to read the original (scientific) material in order to write a popular article? Which scientific article would you choose if you were going to write a popular piece and you had to base it on only one scientific article? Which popular articles seemed like the author had had read the original research?

What is your first impression of the May 8, 1979 Walter Sullivan NY Times article? Read the article again. Is you second impression different than the first? How did the second reading change your absorption of the material? How do you think we (as journalists) can use our writing to hit readers the first time?

Which lead to you prefer -one that is scientifically to-the-point or more creative and attention getting? Chose an example of each kind of lead and show how they are effective and noneffective.

What do you think about W. Broad's Dec. 21, 1997 article on the front page of the NY Times? Why do you think it made the front page? How does it compare with the Dec. 30, 1997 article on the cover of Science Times? Do you think W. Broad did additional research for the second article?

Readings

Background information: Vent Animals.

Press Release. (1 April 1977) pp. 5. University of California San Diego, Scripps Inst. of Oceanography. Public Affairs Office, A-033 La Jolla, CA 92093.

Press Release. (17 April 1978) pp. 3+ill. . University of California San Diego, Scripps Inst. of Oceanography. Public Affairs Office, A-033 La Jolla, CA 92093.

Project Summary. (12 July 1978) pp. 4. . NSF Award #OCE7810460. University of California San Diego, Scripps Inst. of Oceanography. La Jolla, CA 92093.

Press Release. (3 Jan. 1979) pp. 4. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Woods Hole, MA 02543. Ballard, R. D. (1984) The exploits of Alvin and ANGUS: Exploring the East Pacific Rise. Oceanus. 27(3): p. 7-14.

Hayman, R. M. and K. C. Macdonald. (1985) The geology of deep-sea hot springs. American Scientist. 73: p. 441-445.

Web page. (1998) American Museum of Natural History Expeditions: Black Smokers. pp. 9. http://www.amnh.org

Scientific Papers and Reports: Vent Animals.

Van Dover, C.L. (1988) Do 'eyeless' shrimp see the light of glowing deep-sea vents? Oceanus. 31:p. 47-52.

VanDover, C. L. , E. Z. Szuts, S. C. Chamberlain, and J. R. Cann. (1989) A novel eye in 'eyeless' shrimp from hydrothermal vents of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Nature. 337: p. 458-460.

Pelli, D. G. and S. C. Chamberlain. (1989) The visibility of 350燭 black-body radiation by the shrimp Rimicaris exoculata and man. Nature. 337: p. 460-461.

Travis, J. (1993) Probing the unsolved mysteries of the deep. Science. 259: p. 1123-1124.

Little, C. T. S., R. J. Herrington, V. V. Maslennikov, N. J. Morris and V. V. Zaykov. (1997) Silurian hydrothermal-vent community from Southern Urals, Russia. Nature. 385: p. 146-148.

Vrijenhoek, R.C. (1997) Gene flow and genetic diversity in naturally fragmented metapopulations of deep-sea hydrothermal vent animals. The Journal of Heredity. 88(4): p. 285-293.

Tunnicliffe, V., R. W. Embley, J. F. Hoden, D. A. Butterfield, G. J. Massoth, and S. K. Juniper. (1997) Biological colonization of new hydrothermal vents following an eruption on Juan de Fuca Ridge. Deep-Sea Research I. 44(9): p. 1627-1644.

Holden, C. (ed.) (1998) Farming Tubeworms. Science. 279: p. 663.

Prieur, D., S. Chamroux, P. Durand, G. Erauso, Ph. Fera, C. Jeanthon, L.Le Borgne, G. Mevel, and P. Vincent. (1990) Metabolic diversity in epibiotic microflora associated with the Pompeii worms Alvinella pompejana and A. caudata (Polychaetae: Annelida). Marine Biology. 106: p. 361-367.

Cary, S. C., T. Shank, and J. Stein. (1998) Worms bask in extreme temperatures. Nature. 391: p. 545-546.

Scientific Papers and Reports: Black Hole Smokers - Origin of Life.

Ponnampera, C. and M. Hobish (1982) "The Galapagos Hydrothermal Vent Ecologies: Possibilities for Neoabiogenesis?" First Symposium on Chemical Evolution and the Origin and Evolution of Life. NASA Ames Research Center, CA. August 2-4.

Tunnicliffe, V. (1992) "Hydrothermal-Vent Communities of the Deep Sea." American Scientist. 80: 336-349.

de Ronde, Cornel E. J., T. W. Ebbsen (1996) "32 .b.y. of organic compound formation near sea-floor hot springs" Geology 24(Sept.): 791-794.

Scientific Papers and Reports: Black Hole Smokers - Mining.

Rona, P. (1973) "Plate Tectonics and Mineral Resources". Scientific American. Continents Adrift and Continents Aground- readings from Scientific American. Intro by J. Tuzo Wilson, July.

Haymon, R. M. and M. Kastner. (1981) "Hot spring deposits on the East Pacific Rise at 21 degrees North: preliminary description of mineralogy and genesis". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 53:363-381.

Edmond, J. M. (1984) "The Geochemistry of Ridge Crest Hot Springs". Oceanus. 27(Fall): 15-19.

Rona, P. (1986) "Mineral Deposits from Sea-Floor Hot Springs". Scientific American. 254(Jan.): 84-92.

Herzig, P. M. and M. D. Hannington. (1995) "Hydrothermal activity, vent fauna, and submarine gold mineralization at alkaline fore-arc seamounts near Lihir Island, Papua New Guinea". Proceedings of the 1995 PACRIM Congress at the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. 9: 279-284.

Humphris, S. E. et al. (1995) "Th internal structure of an active sea-floor massive sulphide deposit". Nature. 377:713-716.

Koski, R. (1995) "The Making of Metal Deposits". Nature. (News and Views). 377:679-680.