On Wednesday’s Access Utah, host Tom Willams interviewed Susan Casey, author of "Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean." Casey works to help answer the unknown questions of the Earth's mighty waters. She shared what she's learned about our understanding of the deep ocean and its role in climate change.
With pushes in technology, many like Casey have been able to descend far into the ocean depths, withstanding high amounts of pressure. Casey shared her life altering experience in the Triton, the first submersible to reach the deepest points of all five oceans, with ocean explorer Victor Vescovo.
"Every so often you get really lucky on timing. And I got really lucky because his expeditions coincided with my reporting for this book, and he allowed me to join them," Casey said. "And at a certain point, I asked him if I could dive with him, and he immediately said yes. And so I dived with Victor to 17,000 feet. Of course, the sub goes to 36,000 feet.
"We dived in my home waters around Hawaii to the base of a volcano off the southern tip of the big island in Hawaii, which will one day become the next Hawaiian island," she continued. "So there's a hot spot in Hawaii that has created the arc of the archipelago of islands, and there is another one brewing beneath the surface called Kama‘ehuakanaloa. And very few people have been to the base, only a couple in a Russian sub that goes to 6000 meters that doesn't dive anymore. But so we were in, really in uncharted waters, and that deep dive, yes, we fell for two and a half hours to the bottom."
Casey said these deep ocean expeditions have led to discoveries of new microbes, creatures with bioluminescent capabilities, and strange new species of fish. Casey added that these creatures have an impact on the planet.
“The easiest way I can describe it is it's the motherboard of the planet and all of the Earth's systems that keep everything in balance, that created the environment that allowed us to evolve and flourish," Casey explained. "Those are all very interconnected, and they all stem from the deep ocean life. I mean, this is a debate that we may never decisively settle, but the preeminent view of how life emerged on Earth is at hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean. 80% of the biomass of the deep ocean is microbial. And those microbes do everything. They run every geochemical cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the phosphorus cycle. There's just this, this incredible balance that goes on to make earth habitable for us."
Casey added that the ocean has become the sponge for the world’s excess heat and carbon dioxide due to climate change.
“It has just gulped down a tremendous amount of that. I don't think that we would be able to survive without that and but yet, nobody knows how long it can keep doing that, where, if there is, and there probably is a tipping point," she said. "So it's vital that we understand how all these systems work together, that we really ramp up our scientific inquiry about how it all fits together, this this incredibly intricate machine, and all the answers to those gazillion dollar questions, they lie in the deep ocean.”
Susan Casey will present at the Natural History Museum of Utah's lecture series March 24 and 25 at 7:00 p.m.
Listen to the full interview with Casey on Access Utah below.
