chock full of chemicals. Prior to this discovery, scientists believed only sunlight could provide the energy required to grow enough food to support large, diverse ecosystems. But here, at the bottom of the sea, where the sun doesn’t shine, microbes evolved the capacity to extract energy from chemicals through a process called chemosynthesis. This discovery completely rewrote the definition of “life” and the scientific understanding of what was required to support it. (See Chapter 5 for more about ecosystems that develop around hydrothermal vents and how it’s possible.)
Various technologies used for exploring and monitoring the ocean continuously gather data and make it available for analysis to help predict earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes.
Ocean exploration collects and analyzes valuable data related to the health and abundance of different marine species, which is crucial for detecting early warning signs of declining populations and revealing possible solutions.
These are just a few of the practical benefits of ocean exploration. Many more will certainly become apparent as ocean exploration evolves. Currently, only about 5 percent of the ocean has been explored, so our understanding of the ocean is still in its infancy. In fact, we know more about the surface of our moon than we know about our ocean, and we have better maps of Mars than we do of the ocean floor. Yet, the future of ocean exploration has some very exciting prospects and much more practical applications. One more thing, for those who think astronauts are cooler than ocean explorers — guess where they do some of their most serious training … underwater. That’s right, astronauts train underwater to prepare them for space, because surviving in space is easier than surviving underwater. So who’s more badass now?
Getting in touch with our emotional connection to the sea
When looking at a map, many see the ocean as a vast expanse between continents, countries, and people — as something that divides us. But the ocean doesn’t divide us, it connects us. We are all touched by the sea every minute of every day, no matter where we live. When you look out across the ocean’s deep blue hues or envision them through your imagination you’re filled with excitement, wonder, curiosity, fear, hope, or a harmony of emotions. As the latest generation of hipsters may say, the ocean fills us with “all the feels.”
Have you ever noticed when you’re near the ocean, you feel calmer? You feel a little healthier, less stressed, peaceful, and happier? Well, while part of that sense of serenity may be due to the fact that it’s the weekend or you’re on vacation, most of it is actually due to the fact that the ocean has a soothing and restorative effect on the mind and spirit. This is something that our friend and noted marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols explores in his book Blue Mind (Back Bay Books, 2015). In it Nichols explores neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and medical research to illuminate the physiological and brain processes that underlie our connection to water and its effects on the human body, mind, and spirit.
Through his research, Nichols found that being in or close to water, whether ocean, lake, stream, river, or even swimming pool, reduces anxiety, boosts creativity, strengthens human bonds, increases compassion, and even enhances job performance. As Nichols summarizes (www.wallacejnichols.org/122/bluemind.html), “Water is medicine for those who need it most … and everyone else,” a statement that resonates with Danish writer Isak Dinesen, who wrote, “The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.”
Any way you slice it, we are all connected to the ocean and through the ocean to one another — physically through air and water, emotionally through stories, art and music, and mentally through our daydreams, whether they’re dreams of sitting near the beach with a cold drink as the sea blows gently through our hair, of standing tall on the deck of a wooden ship battling the kraken, or of being seduced by the siren songs of distant mermaids.
See you there.
Chapter 3
Looking Back at the Ocean’s History (and Prehistory)
IN THIS CHAPTER
You can understand a great deal about people, places, and things by examining their past. This is even more true of the ocean, which has at least a 3.8 billion-year history, give or take a few hundred million years. Now that’s a lot of birthdays! Over the course of its existence, it went quickly from mostly fresh water to salt water, has seen entire populations of plants and animals evolve and go extinct, and has been divided into oceans (plural) as huge land masses drifted apart. It is even thought to have frozen over at least twice and possibly as many as four times in its long history. (Don’t worry, the last freeze was about 600 million years ago, and the bigger problem now is global warming, not cooling.)
In this chapter, we transport you back in time to the birth of the ocean and trace its long history of supporting the evolution of various forms of marine life, a few of which you’ll meet up close and personal. We then fast-forward to the present to describe the current condition of the ocean and its inhabitants, along with the impact it has on Earth overall. We wrap things up by taking a peek into the possible future of the ocean to see where it may be heading. (This chapter gets wet, messy, and maybe a little hard to follow at times, so if you want to skip ahead, we would understand. But it’s also really cool, so we hope you stick with us.)
Discovering How the Ocean Got Its Start
Our ocean covers 71 percent of our planet and accounts for nearly 97 percent of its water. That may represent a mere drop in a bucket on a cosmic scale, but it’s respectable on a planetary scale.
If you had that much water in your basement, you’d want to know where it came from, and scientists have been trying to answer that question since, well, about the time they started asking questions. The two big questions are: Was that water always here? and if not, How the heck did it get here? These aren’t exactly “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” questions, but they’re sort of along the same lines. Either water came from the space debris that formed Earth (so the makings of the ocean were here already), or water arrived via comets or asteroids crashing into Earth after it was already formed. (Note: Comets are made of dust, rock, and ice, and they tend to fly farther from the sun than asteroids do. Asteroids are made mostly of metal and rock and varying amounts of water and tend to hang out closer to the sun. Meteors are comets that enter Earth’s atmosphere.)
In this section, we present the two leading theories of how all that water got here as we explore the ocean’s formation.
