Eighteen hundred meters below Antarctica’s Southern Ocean, a volcanic ridge lined by hydrothermal vents burbles in the dark. As these vents belch out scalding water rich with iron and other compounds, they nourish the microscopic plankton that krill and other crustaceans eat, sustaining a food web that culminates in larger predators such as penguins, seals, and whales. Now, new research reveals these vents can be supercharged by a surprising source: earthquakes.

According to a study published last month in Nature Geoscience, earthquakes cause these vents to violently burp up essential nutrients, which travel to the surface and enable the formation of massive plankton blooms spanning hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. Joseph Resing, a deep-sea biochemist at the University of Washington’s Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies who was not involved with the research, says the study provides “tantalizing evidence” that deep-sea earthquakes help provide nutrients to life at the surface. “I love this paper,” he adds.

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