The wonders of the deep deep sea
March 28th, 2008, 4:13 pm Hobbies Ideas
Claire Nouvian
THE DEEP
The extraordinary creatures of the abyss
256pp. University of Chicago Press. $45; distributed in the UK by Wiley.
%26pound;23.50.
978 0 226 59566 5
Tony Koslow
THE SILENT DEEP
The discovery, ecology, and conservation of the deep sea
292pp. University of Chicago Press. $35; distributed in the UK by Wiley. %26pound;18.
978 0 226 45125 1
In 1968, Howard Sanders, a young scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution, published a paradigm-shifting paper on deep-sea biology. With
careful, analytical study and a heavy weight of data Sanders finally killed
the prevailing theory of the depauperate, species-poor deep sea, and showed
incontrovertibly that the small, mud-dwelling species %26ndash; mainly polychaete
worms and crustaceans %26ndash; are actually more diverse in the deep than in
temperate or even tropical shallow-water areas. These data, generated from
what was essentially the first comprehensive but mundane sampling program,
astounded scientists, and even today we speak of before or after the
Sanders study.
William Beebe was the first man to descend into the deep sea in the early
1930s, using a highly primitive steel sphere equipped with two fused-quartz
viewing ports, and open trays of soda lime to keep carbon-dioxide levels
low. But without a camera or any means to take samples, Beebe was forced to
recount from memory and his notes the organisms that he observed. The
fantastical bioluminescent displays he reported seeing were considered with
scepticism by most scientists at the time. In 1960, when Jacques Picard and
Don Walsh dived to the bottom of the Mariana Trench at 10,916m, the first
time any vehicle had been to this depth, their dataset consisted of just two
observations %26ndash; some mud, and what appeared to be a fish.
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