Site of the Week
Voyage to the Deep http://www.ocean.udel.edu/deepsea/
Space may be the final frontier, but if you want to boldly go somewhere a bit closer to home, forget deep space: join the Deep Submergence Group aboard Alvin, their titanium submarine, and take a trip into the most inhospitable environment on the planet.
You might think that thousands of metres below the surface of the sea there would be no signs of life, but, as they say, where there’s a hydrothermal vent, there’s a way. Follow the research team on their mission to find and explore these vents - vast chimneys on the sea bed which spew a soup of minerals and superheated water, capable of supporting organisms that have never seen the light of day. Rather than using light from the Sun to make food (as plants do), ‘chemosynthetic’ organisms take energy from the chemicals churned out from the bowels of the Earth by the thermal vents - and then whole ecosystems can evolve, as predators eat those organisms. Head for the collection of stunning photographs and video footage brought back from the depths and you can come face to face with these creatures, while the other sections let you learn about the chemistry behind life without solar energy, the geology behind thermal vents, and the scientists behind the whole expedition. There’s plenty to read, tons to look at, the information goes to just the right depth, and it’s all deeply amazing.
Richard Northover
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