So here, you've got this valley with this incredible alien landscape
of pillars and hot springs and volcanic eruptions and earthquakes,
inhabited by these very strange animals
that live only on chemical energy coming out of the ground.
They don't need the sun at all.
BL: You see this white V-shaped mark on the back of the shrimp?
It's actually a light-sensing organ.
It's how they find the hydrothermal vents.
The vents are emitting a black body radiation -- an IR signature --
and so they're able to find these vents at considerable distances.
DG: All this stuff is happening along that 40,000-mile long mountain range
that we're calling the ribbon of life, because just even today,
as we speak, there's life being generated there from volcanic activity.
This is the first time we've ever tried this any place.
We're going to try to show you high definition from the Pacific.
We're moving up one of these pillars.
This one's several stories tall.
In it, you'll see that it's a habitat for a lot of different animals.
There's a funny kind of hot plate here, with vent water coming out of it.
So all of these are individual homes for worms.
Now here's a closer view of that community.