two years ago I joined an expedition to
explore the deep sea off the coast of
Southern California our ship was a
floating laboratory we had all of the
best equipment including a submersible
that would go down to the bottom of the
ocean to collect samples and record data
we were there to figure out what the
microbes were doing what kind of
ecosystems they were forming on the
seafloor and what that might mean in
terms of ecosystem change and global
warming and we were positioned about
eight miles off the coast of Los Angeles
the second biggest city in the country
home to more than 15 million people at
night you could see this city lights
illuminate the sky and yet when we put
the robot down just underneath the
surface about a few hundred meters down
we saw this we saw a whole new world
that no one had ever seen before there
are these thick carpets of white and
orange microbial mats that are eating
sulfur there are these gnarled chimneys
of carbonate rocks and shells of clams
all over the place slow-moving fish and
crabs this was a place no one had ever
seen before and it was just off the
coast of Los Angeles we’ve since learned
that the microbes inside these rocks are
consuming methane at rates that are
among the highest ever measured methane
is obviously a very strong greenhouse
gas so the microbes that keep them keep
that methane from getting up into the
water into the atmosphere are doing us a
pretty important service as the deep-sea
biologist I am enormous ly privileged to
see some of the hidden corners of our
world off the coast of New England we
saw this deep-sea Canyon where the walls
just covered with the deep water corals
these can live up to 4,000 years and are
the longest live organisms in the oceans
hydrothermal vents here there’s an
enormous amount of energy coming out of
the sea floor superheated water is being
used and metabolized by the microbes
that form the basis of ecosystems that
are as thick and as bio diverse as the
on rainforests there is so much crazy
stuff in the ocean those are just the
microbes but we also see these weird
gelatinous goo forms called
siphonophores they can be 40 meters long
and they’re clonal organisms each bit is
doing a slightly different type of
physiology there are acid x worms so
these may look fluffy and cuddly but
these are boring into bones and
consuming the nutrients inside bones
they can find whale carcasses that fall
to the bottom of the ocean separated by
hundreds of kilometers we’re still even
seeing really fundamental things about
larger systems beaked whales have
recently been found to dive about 3,000
meters to the bottom of the ocean they
can hold their breath for more than two
hours and seamounts underwater mountains
there could be tens of thousands of
these dotting the seafloor all over the
world ecosystems could differ depending
on where on that mountain you are just
like we see mountains here on land
what’s crazy though is that everything
I’ve just showed you comes from the
0.01% of the seafloor that we’ve seen in
any detail that means that the vast vast
majority of the sea floor the 99.99%
looks kind of like this we’re completely
in the dark
we have no idea what’s happening this is
the equivalent of if Lewis and Clark had
in before setting out on their journey
across the American West left their home
base of st. Louis and instead of going
thousands of kilometres to the Pacific
Ocean instead of finding the Rocky
Mountains and buffalo and a whole new
ocean if instead of that they just spent
their entire time on the half mile of
the Missouri River outside of st. Louis
that’s the same proportion of the
seafloor that we’ve only scratched the
surface at and you might think that
because there’s so much that’s been
unseen that it is being unaffected by
some of the anthropogenic changes we see
here on land climate change maybe not an
issue but unfortunately that’s not the
case the oceans are a massive conveyor
belts they can carry pollutants they can
carry trash from times past times
present halfway around the world to some
of the most remote places on earth
so these methane seeps there is I study
most a lot of these microbes are living
inside rocks inside limestone and we
don’t really know what’s gonna happen
when some of the tendrils of global
warming or ocean acidification start to
reach the seafloor if they dissolve
these rocks what could that do to the
methane cycle it could a lot of that
methane end up in the atmosphere in the
Mariana Trench the deepest part of our
ocean deeper than Mount Everest is tall
even down there plastic bags are found
and within the shells of these
crustaceans scientists recently found
PCBs pollutants that are made from
industrial processes again halfway
across the world there are also more
acute threats to the global ocean like
deep-sea mining this is set to begin in
a couple of years mining companies are
particularly interested in these
manganese nodules these potato sized
clumps of rocks that can be tens of
millions of years old
cobalt crusts that coat the outside of
these seamounts these underwater
mountains and metal-rich sulfides at
hydrothermal vents these are among the
most unique ecosystems we know that and
a lot of what makes that exploitation
possible is the lack of a unifying set
of laws based around the high seas the
high seas are the bits of the ocean that
are beyond the 230 mile limit of
national jurisdiction so that’s 45
percent of the planet that is
essentially the Wild West this means
that we don’t really know what’s gonna
happen in this area of the seafloor when
deep sea mining begins it’s possible
that that is actually going to be the
most environmentally friendly way to get
our metals we don’t know the issue
though is that we don’t even know what
it’s like to begin with we’re already
starting to affect these areas before we
even understand them for example by
destroying a place like this and
extracting the minerals out of it we
could be disrupting elemental cycles we
know nothing about as carbon or nitrogen
or sulfur oxygen are thrown out of whack
we could be eliminating microbes whose
antibiotics could cure diseases we could
be destroying the geological
contexts that could point us toward the
origin of life or form an essential
analog environment as we look for life
beyond Earth there’s such a huge
opportunity cost to not understanding
these systems before we go in and start
to affect them this is like digging in
your backyard before checking for any
natural gas pipes or electrical lines
what we need is a comprehensive set of
laws that cover the high seas so that
we’re all playing with by the same rules
and we know where to begin fortunately
that might actually be happening so the
UN is set over the next couple of years
to bring up this question and to think
about how to govern biodiversity on the
high seas and this is a big deal it’s
taken decades to get to this stage and
it’s gonna take decades more to see it
put into place and forced in the right
way and made to work for everyone this
is again a very long process with a lot
of technical hurdles it’s gonna fade
from the headlines it’s gonna be pretty
intense we’re gonna get into the weeds
on some of these issues around marine
genetic resources what to do with
biodiversity how to make sure that these
benefits are indeed shared by all of
humankind but the important thing is
that we’re at a really important
inflection point this is maybe the best
chance we’ve ever had to conserve what’s
out there in the high seas and make sure
that we establish rules to govern our
global oceans in a way that works for
everyone not just the scientists who
have a lot of important discoveries to
make but also the people’s whose
livelihoods depend on the ocean who get
their calories from the ocean and who
depend on shipping containers going
across the oceans but to me the most
important thing is to conserve the
opportunity to make these fundamental
discoveries before it’s too late thank you
explore the deep sea off the coast of
Southern California our ship was a
floating laboratory we had all of the
best equipment including a submersible
that would go down to the bottom of the
ocean to collect samples and record data
we were there to figure out what the
microbes were doing what kind of
ecosystems they were forming on the
seafloor and what that might mean in
terms of ecosystem change and global
warming and we were positioned about
eight miles off the coast of Los Angeles
the second biggest city in the country
home to more than 15 million people at
night you could see this city lights
illuminate the sky and yet when we put
the robot down just underneath the
surface about a few hundred meters down
we saw this we saw a whole new world
that no one had ever seen before there
are these thick carpets of white and
orange microbial mats that are eating
sulfur there are these gnarled chimneys
of carbonate rocks and shells of clams
all over the place slow-moving fish and
crabs this was a place no one had ever
seen before and it was just off the
coast of Los Angeles we’ve since learned
that the microbes inside these rocks are
consuming methane at rates that are
among the highest ever measured methane
is obviously a very strong greenhouse
gas so the microbes that keep them keep
that methane from getting up into the
water into the atmosphere are doing us a
pretty important service as the deep-sea
biologist I am enormous ly privileged to
see some of the hidden corners of our
world off the coast of New England we
saw this deep-sea Canyon where the walls
just covered with the deep water corals
these can live up to 4,000 years and are
the longest live organisms in the oceans
hydrothermal vents here there’s an
enormous amount of energy coming out of
the sea floor superheated water is being
used and metabolized by the microbes
that form the basis of ecosystems that
are as thick and as bio diverse as the
on rainforests there is so much crazy
stuff in the ocean those are just the
microbes but we also see these weird
gelatinous goo forms called
siphonophores they can be 40 meters long
and they’re clonal organisms each bit is
doing a slightly different type of
physiology there are acid x worms so
these may look fluffy and cuddly but
these are boring into bones and
consuming the nutrients inside bones
they can find whale carcasses that fall
to the bottom of the ocean separated by
hundreds of kilometers we’re still even
seeing really fundamental things about
larger systems beaked whales have
recently been found to dive about 3,000
meters to the bottom of the ocean they
can hold their breath for more than two
hours and seamounts underwater mountains
there could be tens of thousands of
these dotting the seafloor all over the
world ecosystems could differ depending
on where on that mountain you are just
like we see mountains here on land
what’s crazy though is that everything
I’ve just showed you comes from the
0.01% of the seafloor that we’ve seen in
any detail that means that the vast vast
majority of the sea floor the 99.99%
looks kind of like this we’re completely
in the dark
we have no idea what’s happening this is
the equivalent of if Lewis and Clark had
in before setting out on their journey
across the American West left their home
base of st. Louis and instead of going
thousands of kilometres to the Pacific
Ocean instead of finding the Rocky
Mountains and buffalo and a whole new
ocean if instead of that they just spent
their entire time on the half mile of
the Missouri River outside of st. Louis
that’s the same proportion of the
seafloor that we’ve only scratched the
surface at and you might think that
because there’s so much that’s been
unseen that it is being unaffected by
some of the anthropogenic changes we see
here on land climate change maybe not an
issue but unfortunately that’s not the
case the oceans are a massive conveyor
belts they can carry pollutants they can
carry trash from times past times
present halfway around the world to some
of the most remote places on earth
so these methane seeps there is I study
most a lot of these microbes are living
inside rocks inside limestone and we
don’t really know what’s gonna happen
when some of the tendrils of global
warming or ocean acidification start to
reach the seafloor if they dissolve
these rocks what could that do to the
methane cycle it could a lot of that
methane end up in the atmosphere in the
Mariana Trench the deepest part of our
ocean deeper than Mount Everest is tall
even down there plastic bags are found
and within the shells of these
crustaceans scientists recently found
PCBs pollutants that are made from
industrial processes again halfway
across the world there are also more
acute threats to the global ocean like
deep-sea mining this is set to begin in
a couple of years mining companies are
particularly interested in these
manganese nodules these potato sized
clumps of rocks that can be tens of
millions of years old
cobalt crusts that coat the outside of
these seamounts these underwater
mountains and metal-rich sulfides at
hydrothermal vents these are among the
most unique ecosystems we know that and
a lot of what makes that exploitation
possible is the lack of a unifying set
of laws based around the high seas the
high seas are the bits of the ocean that
are beyond the 230 mile limit of
national jurisdiction so that’s 45
percent of the planet that is
essentially the Wild West this means
that we don’t really know what’s gonna
happen in this area of the seafloor when
deep sea mining begins it’s possible
that that is actually going to be the
most environmentally friendly way to get
our metals we don’t know the issue
though is that we don’t even know what
it’s like to begin with we’re already
starting to affect these areas before we
even understand them for example by
destroying a place like this and
extracting the minerals out of it we
could be disrupting elemental cycles we
know nothing about as carbon or nitrogen
or sulfur oxygen are thrown out of whack
we could be eliminating microbes whose
antibiotics could cure diseases we could
be destroying the geological
contexts that could point us toward the
origin of life or form an essential
analog environment as we look for life
beyond Earth there’s such a huge
opportunity cost to not understanding
these systems before we go in and start
to affect them this is like digging in
your backyard before checking for any
natural gas pipes or electrical lines
what we need is a comprehensive set of
laws that cover the high seas so that
we’re all playing with by the same rules
and we know where to begin fortunately
that might actually be happening so the
UN is set over the next couple of years
to bring up this question and to think
about how to govern biodiversity on the
high seas and this is a big deal it’s
taken decades to get to this stage and
it’s gonna take decades more to see it
put into place and forced in the right
way and made to work for everyone this
is again a very long process with a lot
of technical hurdles it’s gonna fade
from the headlines it’s gonna be pretty
intense we’re gonna get into the weeds
on some of these issues around marine
genetic resources what to do with
biodiversity how to make sure that these
benefits are indeed shared by all of
humankind but the important thing is
that we’re at a really important
inflection point this is maybe the best
chance we’ve ever had to conserve what’s
out there in the high seas and make sure
that we establish rules to govern our
global oceans in a way that works for
everyone not just the scientists who
have a lot of important discoveries to
make but also the people’s whose
livelihoods depend on the ocean who get
their calories from the ocean and who
depend on shipping containers going
across the oceans but to me the most
important thing is to conserve the
opportunity to make these fundamental
discoveries before it’s too late thank you
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