Name: 5 Technologies Helping Us Explore The Deep Ocean
Uploaded: 2021-05-16T07:35:49.000Z
Duration: 9 min 48 s
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基礎受動態

This episode was brought to you by Music for Scientists

The ocean covers over 70% of our planet, with an average water depth

of 3500 meters, making it the largest ecosystem on Earth.

It's so huge, and so sparsely-explored, that it's often referred to as inner space.

There are several challenges to exploring the ocean -- like the need to bring air.

But pressure is where the ocean exploration can get really dangerous.

Under water, every 10 meters of depth adds another atmosphere's worth

quickly going from just a little squeeze to bone-crushing.

Still, these immense pressures haven't stopped us from trying to reach the

greatest depths possible, to learn as much as we can about inner space.

And it's not easy -- but here are five ways we can do it.

Recreational SCUBA divers are warned not to dive deeper than 40 meters.

That's because the compressed gases they carry for breathing underwater

can become dangerous at higher pressures.

During deeper dives, the added water pressure increases the amount of oxygen

and nitrogen delivered to a diver every time they take a breath.

And exposure to higher than normal concentrations of those gases

can have a toxic effect on the diver's body.

Oxygen toxicity due to high oxygen concentrations can cause seizures,

And nitrogen narcosis from too much nitrogen

can cause a diver to feel disoriented or even lose consciousness.

As you can imagine, both of these conditions

would be dangerous while exploring underwater.

deep water divers breathe trimix gases instead.

This is a blend of three gases, usually oxygen, nitrogen, and helium.

This blend reduces the amount of oxygen and nitrogen in the breathing mix

and keeps them from reaching toxic concentrations, even at higher pressures.

Trimix gases expand the depth limit to 60 meters or more,

depending on how experienced the diver is.

And the use of trimix gases in scientific diving has helped researchers explore

the twilight zone of the ocean, a zone that extends from 60 to 150 meters deep.

This zone is too shallow to justify the costs of exploration

with expensive technology like submersibles,

so it's one of the most unexplored regions of the ocean.

Divers exploring the twilight zone are discovering up to 10 new species per hour!

Trimix gases are also often used in conjunction with a rebreather:

a device that absorbs the carbon dioxide exhaled by the diver,

allowing them to rebreathe the unused oxygen and inert gases from each breath.

These are different from traditional SCUBA regulators,

where the exhaled gas gets released as bubbles directly into the water.

Rebreathers extend the life of a limited supply of gas,

which happens to provide an extra benefit for researchers

attempting to observe particularly skittish creatures.

Next are atmospheric diving suits, which are quite a bit like space suits.

There are other ways to explore the deep ocean, but if you want to use your own

arms and legs to interact with the environment, this is really the only option.

These things are more like wearable submersibles than anything else,

and can be a bit clunky and hard to maneuver in

perhaps even more so than a space suit, in fact.

Still, the wearer can descend to depths of over 700 meters for several hours,

with none of the dangers that come from SCUBA diving.

The suits are able to keep their interior pressure at atmospheric levels,

as well as provide several hours of air supply,

so the wearer doesn't even need to be SCUBA certified.

They're also a fantastic way to explore the deeper marine environment

without a lot of loud noise coming from engines, like on a submarine

again, making things easier for skittish wildlife.

Now, while they may resemble space suits,

these were some of the earliest technologies used

to explore marine environments for more than a few minutes at a time.

The most recent iteration of this suit is called the Exosuit,

which researchers want to use to study bioluminescence and biofluorescence

Many migrating fish, plankton, and other animals living in this depth range

have these glowy properties, but scientists have only been able to study them

with remote instruments or from samples found in trawl nets.

The pressure at these depths can be 30 times greater than at the surface,

and even the most experienced diver cannot safely explore in this zone.

Putting a researcher down safely at that depth, with no engine noise,

would be a huge opportunity to learn more about this part of inner space.

Bathyscaphes, at first glance, look a lot like a submarine.

But they have no way to be maneuvered in the water,

so they're more like an underwater hot air balloon than anything else.

A bathyscaphe has a huge tank filled with gasoline to give it buoyancy.

That's because gasoline is both lightweight and resists being compressed,

To descend, the bathyscaphe is loaded up with enough iron shot

to help it slowly sink down to the depths.

To ascend, that shot is released on the ocean floor,

and the bathyscaphe floats to the top with the help of its gasoline-filled tank.

This seems pretty simple compared to the fancier technologies available today

but a bathyscaphe is what took humans to the deepest spot on our planet

In 1960, the Trieste successfully went all the way to the bottom

of the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench,

The two men on board were able to observe for the first time

that there was life even all the way down there.

This observation lasted less than 20 minutes before they had to head back

to the surface, thanks to a crack in one of the viewing windows.

But in that short time span, they saw shrimp, fish, and lots of bioluminescence.

Bathyscaphes are no longer in use today, because the gasoline tanks

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