Asphalt Volcanism and Tar Volcanoes

I found a link to an interesting article on Asphalt Volcanism today. The article reviews a 2004 report published in the journal Science on discoveries of "tar volcanoes" in the Gulf of Mexico. According to the article:

The researchers, a team led by Ian MacDonald of Texas A&M University's Corpus Christi campus, dangled a remote-controlled camera off the German ship RV Sonne to the seafloor far below. Even with
this short-range visual instrument they documented one square kilometer
of tar flows, some of them 20 meters across.

Besides asphalt, the expedition found places soaked with petroleum and others with cold, white layers of methane hydrate. Like cold seeps elsewhere on the world's seafloor, all of these localities
supported colonies of chemical-eating organisms. Bunches of tubeworms
were found growing in and around the tar flows. Apparently something
makes the asphalt attractive to life, but no one is sure yet how the
biogeochemistry works.

The article includes a link to the 2004 report in Science as well as related links to information on asphalt volcanos. You can read the whole article here.