"It was like wandering across the surface of another world," geochemist Bramley Murton, speaking in a press statement, said of steering a submersible around the record-breaking volcanic vents.

"The rainbow hues of the mineral spires and the fluorescent blues of the microbial mats covering them were like nothing I had ever seen before," said Murton, who, like the rest of the team, works with the U.K.'s National Oceanography Centre.

(Watch a video of hydrothermal vents.)

Adapted to extreme heat, darkness, and lack of oxygen, the creatures dwelling at the newfound volcanic vents may be akin to Earth's earliest life-forms or even, some speculate, indicative of what life might be like on other planets. But the team is keeping details about