What process produces the hot water springs at oceanic ridges and why are they important to the origin of the?

let me explain the formation of hot springs.








As rain falls on the surrounding peaks, it percolated into the rather porous sedimentary rocks. As it descends through the rock, it picks up a variety of materials, everything from radium to sulphur. Also, as it moves further beneath the surface, it heats up from the primal heat of the Earth. Eventually, it encounters a large thrust fault, or crack. As water descends behind it, it forces the now heated water to ascend along the fault-line to surface as a hot or warm spring. In Banff, it is the Sulphur Mountain Thrust Fault that is responsible for the 8 hot and warm springs along the lower slopes of Sulphur Mountain. Also critical in the creation of a hot spring, is an express route to the surface. If the water moves slowly from depth to the surface, it will cool back down before it bubbles out as a spring. Luckily, since many of these springs occur in limestone formations, The openings allowing the water to the surface may be enlarged by dissolving of the limestone to create a virtual pipeline to the surface. This assures a quick trip and warm waters.What process produces the hot water springs at oceanic ridges and why are they important to the origin of the?
In the mid-ocean ridge setting, magma bodies rise near the surface of the crust. These bring a lot of heat-the heat transfers into the surrounding rock, and water in the crust starts circulating, rising from heating and pulling cool water in from the side. It's like a giant radiator.





It turns out that so much water migrates through the rocks, when considering the earth as a whole, that the water-rock interaction effectively buffers (controls the chemistry of) sea water. Quite surprising when you think about it.





Not sure exactly how this process relates to the origin of the earth, but it is a major source of heat transfer, it is one of the more important ore-forming mechanisms (many many important orebodies formed in this way), and there is some speculation that perhaps early life was dependant on the chemistry of the hydrothermal fluids. there is a class of microbial life associated with these thermal systems that relies on sulfur chemistry rather than light as an energy source.