Abstract: For using an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to localize seafloor hydrothermal vents fast and accurately, a biomimetic approach to hydrothermal plume tracing is proposed. And to support the investigation of AUV's biologically-inspired control strategies, a graphical simulation environment is designed and developed. In this paper, hydrothermal plume tracing with AUVs and the modular architecture of the simulation environment are firstly introduced and described. Then, the modules of hydrothermal plume and flow field in simulation environment are modeled, and the efficient numerical solution algorithms are given. To facilitate Monte Carlo simulation, a set of stochastic initial and boundary conditions are set. And the modular behavior-based AUV control system architecture employed in the control system module is mainly described. The simulation environment addresses the key factors that complicate the investigation of AUV's biologically-inspired control strategies for the hydrothermal plume tracing, including the current field being non-uniform and non-steady, the plume distribution being irregular, intermittent and of large scale, the plume centreline being meandrous, and the plume containing buoyant part and nonconservative tracer. In addition, this simulation environment achieves good visual effect and high computational efficiency, which allows it to be suitable for real-time simulation and Monte Carlo simulation studies. The presented simulation environment provides sufficient support for the investigation of AUV's biologically-inspired control strategies for hydrothermal plume tracing.