A team of British scientists discovered vents spewing superheated water from a trench three miles below the surface of the Caribbean. This has astonished the whole world. As the vents spurt sooty columns of smoke, they have been nick named `black smokers'.

They were found in the world's deepest undersea volcanic rift, 5000 meters deep in the depths of the Cayman Trough. The instruments towed behind their ship and a robot submarine, helped the scientists in finding the vents.

The expedition leader Doug Connelly, a geochemist with the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, revealed that this marked the beginning of a new era of exploration.

The cracks in the earth's crust that allow magma, gas and other material to escape the surface are known as volcanic vents. Water that comes out of vents is hot enough to melt lead. Moreover, it may contain new marine creatures that may reveal the fact the how life begun on earth.

Jon Copley, a marine biologist at the University of Southampton School of Ocean and Earth Science said, "Deep sea vents tell us more about how our planet works. Most of the geological processes that shape our world take place deep underwater, and deep sea vents are a part of that".

The UK's Natural Environment Research Council has funded the research project which will cost around $1.5 million.