University of Washington professor Edward T. Baker presented a lecture about the technology and discoveries of underwater volcanic activity in Weeks Hall Friday.

Baker said a planet that can renew itself — like Earth, with its realigning plate tectonics — can support life. Oceanographers now know that although the ocean floor is being created on a daily basis, the life in the ocean is ancient.

Hydrothermal vents emitting pure carbon dioxide droplets from underwater volcanoes are being researched heavily because oceanographers have discovered life is able to survive in this atmosphere.

“It may well be that life began in hydrothermal-vent environments,” Baker said.

Although toxic to humans, life forms such as mussels and shrimp are able to survive on a food chain based on these lethal chemicals.

“[Life] can do well in a toxic hell,” Baker said.

Oceanographers and scientists applied this discovery to outer space exploration. Mars is even more volcanically active than Earth, and oceanographers have proven life can exist in this type of environment.

Additionally, astronomers hypothesized Jupiter’s moon Europa may have oceans. Oceanographers conceive Europa could support hydrothermal life.

Oceanographers now use sonar mapping to visualize the sea floor in detail and have discovered there are more than 36,000 miles of ridges on the sea floor that constantly create new layers of Earth’s crust.

These ridges are concentrated with volcanic activity. More than 80 percent of volcanic events take place on the sea floor, Baker said. Oceanographers utilize a machine that can dive directly into the ocean without requiring operators to control it from inside the machine.

“Most of the money [for ocean and space research] goes to keeping the people [in the machines] safe,” Baker said.

New technology, therefore, is much more inexpensive, convenient and secure. In spite of this, “only a small fraction of the sea floor has been mapped,” Baker said.

Baker received his undergraduate degree in geology from the University of Notre Dame and received a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Washington. He has studied oceanography for 40 years and has had more than 80 publications. He currently travels on a tour sponsored by the National Science Foundation to lecture to various university crowds about ocean ridges.

“Oceanography [is] even more fun [than geology]. [It] gave me a chance to look at something more dynamic than rocks — something that’s happening now,” Baker said.

People attending the lecture included University of Wisconsin students hailing from a variety of majors.

“I come to the Friday lectures once in a while just to see what people are researching,” said geology major Sarah Edwards. “[Today’s lecture] was very interesting.”

The UW geology department hosts lectures about an assortment of geological research topics every Friday.