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Deeply ConnectedScripps scientists explore Earth's final frontierFebruary 2008By Mario C. Aguilera Only 150 years ago, marine scientists painted the deep sea as a mysterious, barren, and lifeless abyss. Dark and cold, with excruciatingly high pressure, the ocean deep surely couldn't sustain any sort of life forms. Ocean exploration and new technologies have upended those ideas. Particularly in the last 30 years, scientific investigations have transformed our understanding of the deep sea from an environment of quiet desolation to one of vibrant biodiversity featuring a dynamic mix of exotic marine life. In fact, scientists now believe a large fraction of the planet's organisms reside in the deep sea. 
A handful of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have helped shape recent advances in the continually evolving depiction of the deep and its environment. Among them, Lisa Levin has investigated a variety of bizarre creatures that have adapted to extreme deep sea settings, from toxic methane seeps to massive zones where oxygen levels are next to nothing. Tony Koslow spent a decade exploring marine life on undersea mountains called seamounts. Such species, he says, were once believed to reside too deep to be caught by fishermen, but today are regularly ending up on our dinner plates. 
Indeed, the deep sea, previously considered untouchably remote, is a lot closer than many perceive, researchers are learning. Human-generated pollution, overfishing, and climate change are having a direct impact on deep-sea environments and their inhabitants. Much remains to be studied and explored in the deep sea, Earth's final frontier, say Levin and Koslow, especially before the long arm of humanity reaches down into the dark ocean depths and irreversibly changes what's there. -->Next page: Discovering Strange Organisms |
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