Under the sea

WHEN people think of unexplored frontiers these days, they tend to think of other planets and the universe at large. Space exploration, including successful missions to Mars, have led many to believe that in a couple of generations from now, travel to the moon and Mars will not only be possible but also quite easily achieved.
If you speak to oceanographers, however, they will tell you that the real unexplored frontier is not beyond the heavens but under the sea. The depths of the ocean, they assert, have more secrets and possibilities than moons and planets. Maybe, there is some truth to their assertions, given that oceanographers say that a paltry 20 per cent of the ocean has been mapped.
One expedition in the Atlantic Ocean has found a real ‘lost city’ beneath the waves and oceanographers say that it is teeming with marine life. While this city is not some lost human civilisation its description is still awe-inspiring. The towering landscape of this marine city is located near the mid-Atlantic Ridge and consists of massive walls, columns and monoliths of more than 60 metres. Many of the white spires spew hydrogen or methane gas into the surrounding water. These, in turn, are believed to provide fuel to trillions of microbes living in the city.
Such a world’s existence under the sea is beyond the limits of imagination. This city, along with its rock walls and rich marine life, is said to be over 120,000 years old — an indescribably long period of time. But even this marine ecosystem is a blip considering that our planet and life on it is believed to be around four billion years old. Scientists have become fascinated with studying microbes and the ecosystem in this undersea city, because it is an example of how organisms can survive without oxygen. Scientists think that such an undersea ecosystem might provide clues as to the possibility of life in space.
It may take a while before scientists can establish what nutrients the microbes in the lost city are scrounging around for. The lost city might provide clues as to how life may be possible in extreme conditions. As humans we rely on oxygen to survive, and the exploration of new frontiers has thus been guided by the search for nutrients and gases that we consider necessary for our own survival. However, in this ecosystem, scientists hypothesise that the swirling waters could generate favourable conditions for life.
An interesting report in the New York Times, a couple of months ago, focuses on the oceanic exploration. It refers to the journal Science, which published a report about a 30-member expedition that had managed to drill deep into the lost city to access a vast expanse of rare rocky material, which may support the work of scientists who believe that life began under the ocean and through basic microbes that survive in inhospitable underwater conditions. The large amount of rocky material will lead to systematic scientific studies that can help us understand processes integral to the origin of life on Earth.
This particular expedition — named the ‘Building Blocks of Life — drilled into a rocky seabed located at a distance of 2,250 kilometres from Bermuda. According to the NYT, “Its tallest spire rivals a 20-storey building.” It was due to the efforts of an international consortium of 20 countries that made the exploration possible — an example in global cooperation that could be replicated to solve other scientific puzzles.
The conseque­n­­ce of such scientific discoveries can tra­nsform human bei­ngs’ understanding of themselves and of life on Earth. The story of tiny organisms surviving on almost nothing links up with the unknown frontiers of life. Just like it felt impossible that any kind of life would exist in the mega depths of the ocean, so it had seemed that life would be impossible in the depths of space.
Delving deep into these little understood frontiers of exploration inevitably makes one aware of the small fraction of time in which human beings have existed on Earth. The idea of billions of years in which microbial life existed on our own opens up questions about where planets and moons that seem austere and lifeless really are in their life cycle. When we do not see life on the surface of planets or moons in a form that we are familiar with, it does not mean that there isn’t any life at all.
The seeming emptiness of new frontiers could mean simply that life is in a long state of gestation — a period that lasts millions of years here on Earth.
The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
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Published in Dawn, October 23th, 2024