Hydrothermal vents now have been fo

Hydrothermal vents now have been found globally: at the Gorda and Juan de Fuca Ridges on the northwestern coast of the United States, near Baja California, and in the Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Southern Oceans. They appear to mostly occur along active seafloor-spreading ridges, around fracture zones along those ridges, along subduction zones, and sometimes on isolated seamounts—in other words, in most places in the ocean where there is volcanism.