Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / What Do House Cats Have to Do With Deep-Sea Mining? A Surprising Ocean Connection
Transcript
- 1:00:00Do you want to know how domesticated cats
- 1:00:02are related to deep sea mining?
- 1:00:04Then you're going to want
- 1:00:05to tune in to this episode.
- 1:00:06This is the how to
- 1:00:07protect the ocean podcast.
- 1:00:09If you want more ocean
- 1:00:10news updates every weekday,
- 1:00:13this is your time to hit that follow
- 1:00:15button. Hello everybody.
- 1:00:17Welcome back to the how to
- 1:00:18protect the ocean podcast.
- 1:00:19I'm your host Andrew Lewin
- 1:00:20and we today are talking to Dr.
- 1:00:23Andrew Thaler, who is a deep sea
- 1:00:25ecologist and he's writing a book.
- 1:00:27And this good friend of mine has come to
- 1:00:29me and said, Andrew,
- 1:00:31I need to tell you some deep sea stories,
- 1:00:33not just about the deep sea mining,
- 1:00:35but about the deep sea in general.
- 1:00:37These are stories that are
- 1:00:38going to knock your socks off.
- 1:00:39He's writing a book and part of this is
- 1:00:42telling these wonderful stories.
- 1:00:44It's going to be part of the book.
- 1:00:45So you're getting kind of a
- 1:00:46sneak peek by being part of this,
- 1:00:48how to protect the ocean podcast. Uh, and
- 1:00:50it's, it's phenomenal. Today,
- 1:00:52we're going to be talking about how deep
- 1:00:53sea mining has led to the
- 1:00:55domestication of cats and
- 1:00:57it's, you're going to want to,
- 1:00:58I don't want to give anything else away
- 1:01:00because I want you to hear it from
- 1:01:01Andrew. Cause he's a fantastic
- 1:01:03storyteller. And he said, Hey,
- 1:01:05let's do these stories on, uh, on the
- 1:01:08podcast. What do you think?
- 1:01:09And I'm like, let's do it.
- 1:01:10Like, why not? Is my podcast? Why?
- 1:01:12Let's let's try and
- 1:01:12switch it up a little bit,
- 1:01:14make it a little bit more entertaining.
- 1:01:15I know I throw a lot of news at you every
- 1:01:17weekday from Monday to Thursday is
- 1:01:20like a solo episode. We've
- 1:01:21been talking about enforcement.
- 1:01:23And now we're going to talk about deep
- 1:01:24sea mining. Just, uh, you know,
- 1:01:25it's the interview Friday, so we're going
- 1:01:27to be talking about that. Uh,
- 1:01:28and I just think, uh, it's a lot of fun.
- 1:01:30So I'm going to let you hear it straight
- 1:01:33from Andrew's mouth.
- 1:01:34Here is Andrew, Dr. Andrew Taylor,
- 1:01:36talking about the domestication of cats
- 1:01:39and how deep sea mining led to that
- 1:01:41domestication. Enjoy the interview. And I
- 1:01:43will talk to you after. Hey, Andrew,
- 1:01:45welcome back to the how to
- 1:01:47protect the ocean podcast.
- 1:01:48Are you ready to talk about deep sea
- 1:01:51stories? Just in general,
- 1:01:53this is going to be a new series that
- 1:01:55we're going to be doing.
- 1:01:55Are you ready to start the series?
- 1:01:57I am ready. The question for you is are
- 1:02:00you ready? I don't know.
- 1:02:01I take a step back and enjoy the power of
- 1:02:04a different Andrew hosting for a
- 1:02:06moment.
- 1:02:08This is going to be, this is
- 1:02:09going to be a lot of fun. We,
- 1:02:10we've been discussing this for, you know,
- 1:02:12about a month now. Um,
- 1:02:14and we'll get, well,
- 1:02:14I'll let you explain what you want to do
- 1:02:16on this because this is going to be
- 1:02:17your show and I'm just going to be like
- 1:02:19an audience member and kind of
- 1:02:21interjecting every once in a while and
- 1:02:22asking questions and stuff.
- 1:02:24But this is going to be a lot of fun.
- 1:02:25We're going to switch it up a little bit.
- 1:02:27Uh, Andrew's got some
- 1:02:27stories that he wants to tell.
- 1:02:29It's part of a larger
- 1:02:30project that he's working on. Uh,
- 1:02:32and so we're going to just
- 1:02:33kind of give it to you, buddy.
- 1:02:34I want you to just go ahead and before,
- 1:02:36before we start though,
- 1:02:37just for those of the, for those of the
- 1:02:38audience members who haven't heard of
- 1:02:40you before, haven't listened to you
- 1:02:41before here on this podcast,
- 1:02:43why don't you just let us know who you
- 1:02:44are and what you do.
- 1:02:45And of course what
- 1:02:46this project is all about.
- 1:02:48All right. Well, I am Dr.
- 1:02:49Andrew Thaler, deep sea ecologist,
- 1:02:52conservation technologist, ocean
- 1:02:54educator, and author,
- 1:02:57and welcome dear listeners to tales from
- 1:02:59the limitless abyss.
- 1:03:01So, uh, the backstory
- 1:03:03behind this little, uh,
- 1:03:05podcasting experiment we're doing is I
- 1:03:07have a book coming out in like a year
- 1:03:10and a half because I have
- 1:03:11to write it, but I have,
- 1:03:15I have a contract for a book tentatively
- 1:03:17titled limitless abyss,
- 1:03:19the use and misuse of the deep sea.
- 1:03:22And one of the things we want to do is as
- 1:03:24I'm researching this book and as I'm
- 1:03:26putting together chapters
- 1:03:27and drafting everything,
- 1:03:28there's just hundreds and hundreds and
- 1:03:30hundreds of these
- 1:03:31delightful little stories
- 1:03:33coming out about all the weird ways that
- 1:03:36humans have used and abused the deep sea
- 1:03:39over, uh, not just years, not just
- 1:03:42decades, not just centuries,
- 1:03:44but millennia. And so I, you know,
- 1:03:46I want to take a little bit of time
- 1:03:48throughout the process is a little bit of
- 1:03:50accountability for me because I got to
- 1:03:53keep writing the book if,
- 1:03:54if I'm going to come
- 1:03:55up with new stories. Uh,
- 1:03:56so it helps keep me on track and it helps
- 1:03:58keep everyone a little entertained.
- 1:04:00And you know, maybe when
- 1:04:01the book finally comes out,
- 1:04:02if you've been listening for a while,
- 1:04:03you'll pick it up. Absolutely.
- 1:04:04Uh, but, uh,
- 1:04:07I want to start today
- 1:04:08with a very simple question.
- 1:04:11All right. Uh, Andrew
- 1:04:13Lewin, why do we have cats?
- 1:04:17Well, as a, as someone who doesn't own a
- 1:04:20cat, um, I'm going to say, I don't know.
- 1:04:23I really don't know how cats came to be.
- 1:04:26I assume they're domesticated from like
- 1:04:28the wild over years and years and years
- 1:04:31of crazy people trying to domesticate
- 1:04:33tigers and lions and so forth. Is that,
- 1:04:36is that the right answer?
- 1:04:37So I'm going to take us back.
- 1:04:39I'm going to take us back about 6,000
- 1:04:42years to the new kingdom of Egypt,
- 1:04:47uh, to Pharaoh, uh, Ramses and Pharaoh,
- 1:04:51Tuttmus the third and, uh,
- 1:04:54the very first deep sea mines back then.
- 1:04:59So this is a, one of the really cool
- 1:05:03things that has come up and one of the,
- 1:05:05uh, interesting pieces of primary
- 1:05:07research that has come out of this book
- 1:05:08is I started asking this question.
- 1:05:11You know, I talk a lot when I tell people
- 1:05:13about deep sea mining and I tell people
- 1:05:15about hydrothermal vents.
- 1:05:16One of the things I
- 1:05:16say is that, you know,
- 1:05:17when you think about metal that comes in
- 1:05:19veins, so things like
- 1:05:20copper and gold and silver,
- 1:05:22in a lot of cases,
- 1:05:23those veins are actually the stock works
- 1:05:26of ancient hydrothermal vents.
- 1:05:27So the hydrothermal vent chimney that
- 1:05:30forms as this vent grows in the sea floor
- 1:05:32deposits heavy metals along the walls.
- 1:05:36And then eventually
- 1:05:37over millions of years,
- 1:05:38those vents shut down and they drift off
- 1:05:40access and, you know,
- 1:05:42continents up heave and the earth moves
- 1:05:44and eventually they end up on land.
- 1:05:46Uh, and they become
- 1:05:47things like gold mines.
- 1:05:49So, uh, those, those
- 1:05:51structures are called ophiolites.
- 1:05:52Ophiolites are chunks of oceanic plate
- 1:05:54that have been uplifted onto land.
- 1:05:56And are now sitting on land
- 1:05:58as remnants of ancient seabed.
- 1:06:02And so I thought, you know, wouldn't it
- 1:06:04be interesting to like, look at some of
- 1:06:06the old copper mines that were important
- 1:06:10during the Bronze Age and, you know,
- 1:06:13see how many of those really
- 1:06:14were ancient hydrothermal vents.
- 1:06:18So, you know, I started in the Egyptian
- 1:06:20New King kingdom at the, at
- 1:06:23the peak of the Bronze Age.
- 1:06:25And I started with a Pharaoh Thutmose III
- 1:06:29because one of the things that's really
- 1:06:31fascinating about that most of the third
- 1:06:32is that he was a conqueror.
- 1:06:39He, he spread the Egyptian
- 1:06:40kingdom across the Levant.
- 1:06:43And he is the source of the first battles
- 1:06:45in recorded history.
- 1:06:48So the first actual he carried, he
- 1:06:50brought with him a scribe
- 1:06:51who wrote everything down.
- 1:06:52So, you know, we don't know exactly what
- 1:06:55happened, but we know what
- 1:06:56he wanted us to know happened.
- 1:07:00And so we have records of, uh, you know,
- 1:07:04some of these ancient battles, including,
- 1:07:06um, uh, the battle of Megadow, which is
- 1:07:08the first battle in recorded history.
- 1:07:11Um, and we know how many people were
- 1:07:13killed and we knew what they carried and
- 1:07:15how many horses they had and how many
- 1:07:16chariots and all these great things and
- 1:07:18how many bronze weapons they had.
- 1:07:19So I was interested of like tracking back
- 1:07:22from there and being
- 1:07:23like these bronze weapons.
- 1:07:26This was a technological innovation to
- 1:07:28have bronze over, over
- 1:07:29copper or over stone.
- 1:07:32Uh, where did that bronze come from?
- 1:07:35And could we track it
- 1:07:36back to a hydrothermal vent?
- 1:07:37And what I found is that, uh, the
- 1:07:39Egyptian New Kingdom, their early copper
- 1:07:41mines were on, uh, the Sinai peninsula.
- 1:07:44They were 500 million
- 1:07:46year old Ophieolites.
- 1:07:47They were hydrothermal vents.
- 1:07:49Um, the major source of copper for the
- 1:07:53new kingdom was on the island of Cyprus.
- 1:07:57Uh, the island of Cyprus
- 1:07:58itself is in Ophieolite.
- 1:08:02Um, so the mountains of Cyprus are all
- 1:08:04chunks of ancient seabed.
- 1:08:05This is a hundred million year old chunk
- 1:08:07of the neotetha sea that was lifted up
- 1:08:11onto land and slowly over generations,
- 1:08:15the people who
- 1:08:16eventually settled on Cyprus
- 1:08:19were discovered that there were these
- 1:08:19rich, rich copper veins inside, um, the
- 1:08:24mountains of, of Cyprus.
- 1:08:27And in addition to these copper veins,
- 1:08:32they also found
- 1:08:33fossils, very strange fossils.
- 1:08:39And when archeologists started excavating
- 1:08:42these old, uh, mines in Cyprus and
- 1:08:46looking at the fossils, you know, this is
- 1:08:47early 19th century, early 20th century,
- 1:08:51you know, the Egyptologists, the, the
- 1:08:53archeologists that were going through
- 1:08:54ancient Greece, all that fun stuff.
- 1:08:56When the Victorians were out stealing
- 1:08:58everything they could from, uh, from the
- 1:09:00Levant and from Egypt.
- 1:09:02Um, they find these fossils and no one
- 1:09:04knew what these fossils were.
- 1:09:05They were just these
- 1:09:06strange, strange fossils.
- 1:09:07Uh, so they were kind of this weird
- 1:09:10thing, just something out there, the
- 1:09:12strange fossil until, and no one knew, no
- 1:09:16one really could figure it out.
- 1:09:17Maybe it was a worm. It was some kind of
- 1:09:19an animal. No one's really sure. Some of
- 1:09:21them looked like snails.
- 1:09:23And then in 1977, Bob Ballard dives on
- 1:09:28the Pacific rise in, you know, the
- 1:09:31Pacific ocean and finds
- 1:09:33the first hydrothermal vents.
- 1:09:37And on these first hydrothermal vents is
- 1:09:39riftia pachiptila, the
- 1:09:40giant deep sea tube worm.
- 1:09:42You know, these massive tube worms, the
- 1:09:44fastest growing invertebrate on the
- 1:09:45world. They can grow several meters long.
- 1:09:48Um, they have these bright red plumes
- 1:09:50that come out of, of these tubes that
- 1:09:52they build that then extract the chemical
- 1:09:55energy from the hydrothermal vent and
- 1:09:57turn into food for the animal.
- 1:09:59And those two worms on the East Pacific
- 1:10:01rise looked almost
- 1:10:02identical to the fossils in Cyprus.
- 1:10:06And so they're like, oh, this is proof
- 1:10:10positive. This is these old copper mines.
- 1:10:13These old copper mines
- 1:10:13are hydrothermal vents.
- 1:10:16And so I kept tracking different minds
- 1:10:18across Egypt and the Near East and the
- 1:10:22Middle East. And we found ophiolites in
- 1:10:24Turkey and ophiolites in Oman and
- 1:10:27ophiolites kind of all
- 1:10:28across these regions.
- 1:10:28And they're all ancient hydrothermal
- 1:10:30vents. Most of them are from the
- 1:10:31neotethis. So 100 million year old vents.
- 1:10:35Some of them are 500 million years old.
- 1:10:36Some of them are incredibly
- 1:10:37ancient hydrothermal vents.
- 1:10:40But all of these copper mines, all these
- 1:10:43copper mines that basically created the
- 1:10:45Bronze Age are the remnants
- 1:10:48of ancient hydrothermal vents.
- 1:10:50So they are effectively the least
- 1:10:54efficient way to mine the deep sea. You
- 1:10:56wait till it comes to you.
- 1:10:59You wait until it comes to you. And
- 1:11:00honestly, that is probably the best way
- 1:11:02to do it to minimize your environmental
- 1:11:04impact on the sea. Yeah, exactly. You
- 1:11:05wait till the sea floor comes above the
- 1:11:07surface. Yeah, exactly. Only 500 million
- 1:11:09years, but it'll
- 1:11:11eventually get there, right?
- 1:11:12Yeah, so Cyprus is a funny. Yeah, Cyprus
- 1:11:16has been incredibly important throughout
- 1:11:17human history. It's a major source of
- 1:11:19copper. You know, it was a driver of the
- 1:11:21Bronze Age. It was a major cultural
- 1:11:24landmark. Cyprus has a few very funny
- 1:11:28animals associated with him. One of this
- 1:11:31is they had a pygmy elephant.
- 1:11:33So on the island of Cyprus, this is long
- 1:11:36before humans. Right, right, right.
- 1:11:38Several thousand years before human
- 1:11:39settlement, they had these pygmy
- 1:11:41elephants as an elephant, but it's a
- 1:11:42little tiny elephant. And how familiar
- 1:11:46are you with an elephant skull?
- 1:11:47I mean, I can kind of picture it, but I
- 1:11:50don't have one in my backyard or
- 1:11:51anything. Yeah. So one of the weird
- 1:11:54things about elephant skulls is that if
- 1:11:56you look at how the skull is shaped and
- 1:11:57where the eye sockets are, the eye
- 1:11:59sockets are kind of fused together.
- 1:12:00Okay. So they sort of look like one big
- 1:12:04eye socket in the middle of the skull,
- 1:12:06like a little bit of a figure eight, but
- 1:12:07like one big eye socket. So these pygmy
- 1:12:12elephant skulls, Greek explorers are, you
- 1:12:15know, sailing across the Greek islands.
- 1:12:17They're landing in Cyprus. They're, you
- 1:12:19know, going into caves in Cyprus and
- 1:12:21they're finding these elephant skulls
- 1:12:23that are not big. They're not the size of
- 1:12:25a full grown elephant, but they're like
- 1:12:27three, four times the
- 1:12:28size of a human head.
- 1:12:30And they've got one big eye socket right
- 1:12:31in the middle. And so, you know, I don't
- 1:12:36know if you've read the Odyssey. I have.
- 1:12:38I've read all three translations of the
- 1:12:40Odyssey because I love the Odyssey.
- 1:12:43The legend of the Cyclops in ancient
- 1:12:45Greece. One of the predominant theories
- 1:12:48about where that story comes from is
- 1:12:51these pygmy elephant skulls that look
- 1:12:53like a one eyed giant. That's crazy.
- 1:12:57So it didn't actually have one eye. It
- 1:13:00was just the way the bones refused
- 1:13:02together. Yeah, it's just the way that
- 1:13:04elephant skulls form and where the eyes
- 1:13:06are in the eye socket itself kind of
- 1:13:08looks like it's one big
- 1:13:09thing recessed in. Okay.
- 1:13:10Yeah. So Cyprus has lots of funny things
- 1:13:14going for it in terms of animal life. But
- 1:13:16one of the most interesting things that
- 1:13:17came out of my research is the earliest
- 1:13:20record of domesticated cats is from the
- 1:13:25island of Cyprus and they were
- 1:13:26domesticated to keep rats
- 1:13:29out of their copper mines.
- 1:13:31So our original pet cats, the very first
- 1:13:37pet cats are there because we were mining
- 1:13:40a hundred million year old hydrothermal
- 1:13:42vent full of fossil tube worms that we
- 1:13:45couldn't identify yet. And we just needed
- 1:13:49some help keeping the pests out.
- 1:13:51And so and so where did what is the or
- 1:13:54like where's the origin of cats like how
- 1:13:56like what were they domesticated from
- 1:13:58where they are smaller felines small wild
- 1:14:01cats. Yeah, small cats. Interesting.
- 1:14:04That's so cool. So can you so can you say
- 1:14:06like any mining area that's on an island
- 1:14:10or that's like fairly new in terms of the
- 1:14:13last hundred to 500 million years was
- 1:14:16essentially created in the deep sea.
- 1:14:18So all of these heavy metal mines are
- 1:14:23produced by hydrothermalism. Okay. In the
- 1:14:28deep ocean. They're not all from
- 1:14:30hydrothermal vents. But generally
- 1:14:33speaking, with the exception of very
- 1:14:37modern minds where we have the industrial
- 1:14:40equipment to access very deep reservoirs,
- 1:14:44very deep reserves,
- 1:14:46very deep deposits of ore.
- 1:14:48With big industrial machinery and strip
- 1:14:51mining and all that good stuff where you
- 1:14:53have to get really down deep and you can
- 1:14:55find metal that was deposited from like
- 1:14:57older magmatic processes that were
- 1:15:00producing metals with the with the
- 1:15:03exception of our most modern minds.
- 1:15:05Almost all gold mines, almost all copper
- 1:15:09mines, anything that could be accessed
- 1:15:11with 20th century technology or or
- 1:15:14earlier are going to be ancient
- 1:15:17hydrothermal vents, including and one of
- 1:15:21my particularly exciting discoveries and
- 1:15:23it's not really a discovery. We've known
- 1:15:24about it for a long time.
- 1:15:25But the really fun bit of the story is
- 1:15:28that the city of Baltimore sits on top of
- 1:15:32a massive serpent night hosted
- 1:15:34hydrothermal vent. No. So Baltimore was
- 1:15:37very famous for chromium mines back in
- 1:15:39the day. And part of the reason that my
- 1:15:41family ended up in Baltimore 200 years
- 1:15:44ago is for the mining.
- 1:15:46Where were they before?
- 1:15:46They were in pressure. Okay. And they
- 1:15:52were in Russia. And, you know, we fled
- 1:15:55the pogroms. Right. Basically how we
- 1:15:56ended up in America. But we settled in
- 1:16:00Baltimore. And, you know, part of the
- 1:16:02reason we settled in Baltimore, which is
- 1:16:03the industry around Baltimore.
- 1:16:04And the industry came from chromium
- 1:16:07mining in a large part. And that chromium
- 1:16:10mining is the result of a
- 1:16:11serpentinization, which is a process that
- 1:16:14creates hydrothermal vents. So, you know,
- 1:16:16a lot of the Baltimore ultramafic
- 1:16:18complex, which is the rocks we sit on in
- 1:16:21Baltimore is from hydrothermal venting.
- 1:16:24That's so cool. That is so neat. Now,
- 1:16:28some of the mines that are internal, like
- 1:16:31inland, you know, I know Baltimore is a
- 1:16:34bit in, but it's got the coastal kind of
- 1:16:36structure to it. Would you say are from
- 1:16:39deep sea mines as well? Like anything in
- 1:16:41like any mine at all is, is a rise from
- 1:16:44the deep sea or is that like a different
- 1:16:46geographic or geophysical process?
- 1:16:49So not every, every mine, but for the
- 1:16:52most part, all the heavy metal, all the
- 1:16:53heavy metal mines. Yeah. So we are, I
- 1:16:56mean, that is how you get heavy metals is
- 1:16:59you dissolve it in seawater and then you
- 1:17:01put it under enormous pressure. And then
- 1:17:03you boil that sea water to the point
- 1:17:05where it goes through a phase transition.
- 1:17:07And then all those metals fall out of
- 1:17:09solution and are
- 1:17:10deposited on the sea floor. Wow.
- 1:17:13That's incredible. So we have been mining
- 1:17:16the deep sea for a very
- 1:17:17long time. Yeah. Just not.
- 1:17:18We just, we were more efficient at it. We
- 1:17:22waited. We were more patient. Let's just
- 1:17:24say, we waited. Just waited till you
- 1:17:26were, you know, until like generations
- 1:17:28and generations after. Yeah. Well, it's
- 1:17:32like oil, right? That's just a very
- 1:17:33inefficient way to get sunlight. Yeah.
- 1:17:36Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's so
- 1:17:39cool. Yeah, that is so neat. So like, how
- 1:17:43do you find like a story like this, like
- 1:17:46knowing the history like this?
- 1:17:49How do you find that helps like for the
- 1:17:53listeners out there to bring it to
- 1:17:55conservation and seeing all these
- 1:17:57petitions for an RFI is like, you know,
- 1:18:00request for information and things like
- 1:18:03that. How do you think this influences
- 1:18:05them or, or can help them in the fight
- 1:18:10against deep sea mining? Like just to not
- 1:18:12let it happen if they
- 1:18:13don't want to let it happen.
- 1:18:15So one of the things I'm looking at is
- 1:18:17all of our cultural connections to the
- 1:18:19deep sea. So we don't think about the
- 1:18:21deep sea as something that we're
- 1:18:23culturally connected to, you know,
- 1:18:24outside of a few people who are, you
- 1:18:26know, super jazzed about the deep ocean.
- 1:18:29And we don't think about all the ways
- 1:18:31that we use the deep sea that are maybe
- 1:18:33out of sight, out of mind, but are
- 1:18:35actually very important to how society
- 1:18:37functions. So, you know, like
- 1:18:40telecommunications tables, tables, telecommunication tables.
- 1:18:44I don't think we've used tables 99% of
- 1:18:49our data travels through the deep sea
- 1:18:51when whenever we're connecting across
- 1:18:54continents and it has for 200 years.
- 1:18:56Yeah. You know, we we use the deep sea as
- 1:19:00a place to dispose of tremendous amounts
- 1:19:02of waste. It's the use and misuse of the
- 1:19:05deep sea. So we're talking a lot about
- 1:19:06misuse as well. But you know, one of one
- 1:19:09of the ways we dispose of waste in the
- 1:19:10deep sea is we crash
- 1:19:12spaceships into a water.
- 1:19:14Point in the middle of the Pacific,
- 1:19:15that's far from land. So that doesn't
- 1:19:17hurt anyone out when you, you know, drop
- 1:19:19a spacecraft on the plane, or doesn't
- 1:19:20blow up as it gets down to the ground.
- 1:19:22Exactly. So there's all these different
- 1:19:25ways that we're using the deep ocean that
- 1:19:28we don't necessarily think about, but are
- 1:19:30that absolutely important to human
- 1:19:32civilization and human survival.
- 1:19:34So one of the reasons I wanted to start
- 1:19:35the book with this kind of tracking of
- 1:19:38all these ancient hydrothermal events is
- 1:19:39to argue, you know, hydrothermal events
- 1:19:42are responsible for the advent of the
- 1:19:44Bronze Age. They are, you know, they're
- 1:19:47not just this thing that we have
- 1:19:48discovered recently and are like, Oh,
- 1:19:51isn't that neat? Isn't that interesting?
- 1:19:52There's this weird thing on
- 1:19:53the bottom of the sea floor.
- 1:19:54They are central to our story as humans
- 1:19:57and to our story of technological
- 1:19:59development. We are people of the sea, we
- 1:20:02have come from the sea and the sea is,
- 1:20:05you know, from the sea, we have gained
- 1:20:07almost all of our civilization. Yeah.
- 1:20:11That's incredible. Never thought about it
- 1:20:13that way. If you think, you know, when
- 1:20:14you think about how much we depend on the
- 1:20:16ocean, we think of what it gives us right
- 1:20:17now, but not how it's formed sort of our
- 1:20:20society, you know, at this at this point.
- 1:20:23You know, the next time you pet a kitty,
- 1:20:26just think you owe this kid a little bit
- 1:20:30of protection in the deep ocean. The deep
- 1:20:32sea gave you a cat. You should you should
- 1:20:34respect the deep sea
- 1:20:35for that and that alone.
- 1:20:36So my title for this episode should be
- 1:20:39like cats? Question
- 1:20:40mark, protect the deep sea.
- 1:20:42I love it. Absolutely.
- 1:20:44But I mean, it also goes to show a little
- 1:20:47bit like in my train of thought and you
- 1:20:48can correct me if I'm wrong, you know, we
- 1:20:51start mining the deep
- 1:20:52sea now in the deep sea.
- 1:20:55What's going to happen 100 million years
- 1:20:57from now? If we're that if there's still
- 1:21:00humans on that long, what's going to
- 1:21:01happen to the Earth's crust at that
- 1:21:03point? Are we going to get these, you
- 1:21:05know, islands or coastlines that have all
- 1:21:08these heavy metals in or are we just
- 1:21:10going to go down before
- 1:21:12they have a chance to rise to.
- 1:21:14To get that like same with seamen. Oh,
- 1:21:16100 million years from now, it's going to
- 1:21:17be a going to be a whole new. Yeah, we're
- 1:21:20not going to be a part of it. No, no, for
- 1:21:21sure. But I mean, it's it's looking at
- 1:21:23the future of the planet.
- 1:21:24Like from a planet perspective, you know,
- 1:21:26should we even be thinking about that? I
- 1:21:27can see some people not caring. But I
- 1:21:30mean, if it's if it's helped us here,
- 1:21:31it's going to help something for the
- 1:21:33planet later on. You
- 1:21:34know, it's a natural process.
- 1:21:35So, yeah, 100 million years from now, we
- 1:21:40may have plastic
- 1:21:41deposits. Yeah, that's true.
- 1:21:42Probably not plastics not going to
- 1:21:44persist for 100 million years. It's going
- 1:21:46to get subducted into the crust of the
- 1:21:48Earth and turned back into hydrocarbons,
- 1:21:50then spewed back out. But you know, I
- 1:21:54would I would hesitate to guess that that
- 1:21:57the vast majority of humans footprint on
- 1:21:59the planet will be gone 100 years,
- 1:22:01million years. Yeah, that's true. That's true.
- 1:22:02We may leave some fossils behind and
- 1:22:06there may be a few remnants. Yeah.
- 1:22:08Species rarely persist that long. True.
- 1:22:11True. It's it's a that's a long time.
- 1:22:13We're looking at it like that's a very,
- 1:22:16very long time. But this is great. And
- 1:22:18that I like starting that made. Sorry, go
- 1:22:20ahead. That I think that's a great start.
- 1:22:21And that also leads us into our second
- 1:22:23story. So if we want to, I don't know,
- 1:22:26pause and then kick off the next episode.
- 1:22:28Yeah, we can do that. We can do we can
- 1:22:29do. No, no, we can do to a will what
- 1:22:31we'll do is we'll answer that.
- 1:22:32And it here for the first story and then
- 1:22:34tune in soon. I don't know if we'll do
- 1:22:37this every other week or for the world.
- 1:22:39We'll worry. I'll let you know to the
- 1:22:41audience. I'll let you know when we'll be
- 1:22:43airing these. Let's just say Andrew has a
- 1:22:46lot of these stories, which I find if the
- 1:22:48first ones anything any indication is
- 1:22:50going to be great. So we'll end it here.
- 1:22:52Thank you so much. Andrew really
- 1:22:53appreciate it. And then we'll we're going
- 1:22:55to pause it. We're going to record
- 1:22:56another one and then we'll we'll see you
- 1:22:58in a bit. All right.
- 1:23:00Absolutely. Thank you so much. And this
- 1:23:02is going to be a fun absolutely looking
- 1:23:04forward to it. Thank you, Andrew, for
- 1:23:06joining us on today's episode of the how
- 1:23:08to protect the ocean podcast. It's always
- 1:23:09great to have him on. He's a good friend
- 1:23:11of mine. We've known each other for over
- 1:23:12a decade. And every time he's on the
- 1:23:15podcast, every time I talk to him really,
- 1:23:17I'm impressed just with the knowledge
- 1:23:19that he has and the way he tells it.
- 1:23:20he tells it. He is such a fun
- 1:23:22storyteller. I love listening to
- 1:23:24everything he says about
- 1:23:26not only the deep sea but just science in
- 1:23:27general and the ocean in
- 1:23:29general. And it's great to have
- 1:23:30him on every time he's on. He's been on a
- 1:23:33lot and there's a reason
- 1:23:35for that because he can really
- 1:23:36tell stories very well and I love to hear
- 1:23:39it. And we get to chat before
- 1:23:40and after. A lot of the times
- 1:23:42it's one of those times where I'm on with
- 1:23:44a guest and it's one of
- 1:23:45those times we're like hey maybe
- 1:23:46we should record a podcast while we talk
- 1:23:47to each other. That tends to
- 1:23:50happen. So it's great to have
- 1:23:53him on. I hope you enjoyed listening to
- 1:23:55this. Let me know what you
- 1:23:56think about this episode,
- 1:23:57what you thought of the story. Hit me up
- 1:23:59at
- 1:23:59speakupforblue.feedback. That's speakupforblue.com
- 1:24:04forward slash feedback speakupforblue.com
- 1:24:07forward slash feedback. I'd
- 1:24:09love to hear your thoughts.
- 1:24:10You can leave a voicemail or you can
- 1:24:11write it down. I just want
- 1:24:13to get some I just want to get
- 1:24:14feedback and I want to interact with you.
- 1:24:16That's the whole point of
- 1:24:16this podcast. We start the
- 1:24:18conversation on the podcast and then you
- 1:24:20continue it through that feedback link.
- 1:24:22So speakupforblue.com
- 1:24:23forward slash feedback and of course
- 1:24:25don't forget if you want to
- 1:24:26hear this type of stories,
- 1:24:31anything about the ocean, hit that follow
- 1:24:33button so you get to hear next week's
- 1:24:36episode. We're going
- 1:24:36to start Monday and we go Monday,
- 1:24:39Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
- 1:24:41So I want to thank you so much
- 1:24:42for joining me on today's episode of the
- 1:24:44How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have a
- 1:24:46great day. We'll talk to you on Monday
- 1:24:47and happy conservation.