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The Deep Ocean – Earth's Last Frontier · Talking Science

0:00
Right now we actually have these high definition
0:02
3D maps of the craters on Mars. Right. Which
0:07
is, you know, a dead frozen rock over 100 million
0:10
miles away. We have rovers analyzing its dust,
0:13
satellites mapping out the valleys. But if you
0:17
look at the floor of our own oceans right here
0:19
on Earth. It's mostly just a blank void. Exactly.
0:23
I mean, we have mapped the surface of Mars in
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far greater detail than the bottom of our own
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planet. Yeah, it is a pretty staggering reality
0:29
check. And, you know, it all really comes down
0:32
to the brutal physics of seawater. How so? When
0:35
you want to map a planet like Mars or Venus,
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you just put a satellite in orbit. You use electromagnetic
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waves like radar or lasers to take these incredibly
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high -resolution images right through the vacuum
0:46
of space. Right, because space is empty. Exactly.
0:48
But try pointing those same orbital instruments
0:52
at the Pacific Ocean and you hit a literal wall.
0:55
Because water just swallows electromagnetic waves.
0:58
Precisely. Yeah, light and radio waves just do
1:00
not travel far through water. They scatter and
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absorb almost immediately. Oh, wow. So you just
1:05
get nothing back? Pretty much nothing. So to
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map the seafloor properly, you can't just snap
1:10
a picture from space. You actually have to send
1:12
a physical ship, equip it with multi -beam sonar,
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which uses sound waves instead of light, and
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painstakingly drive that ship back and forth
1:21
across the surface. Like mowing the lawn. Exactly
1:23
like mowing the lawn, but across every single
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square kilometer. Which is just, I mean, an unfathomable
1:28
task when you realize the ocean covers 70 % of
1:32
the Earth's surface. Yeah, no, it's massive.
1:33
Even with modern international... initiatives
1:35
trying to speed things up, a huge fraction of
1:38
the seafloor has just simply never been pinged
1:40
by sonar. And I guess that gap in our maps represents
1:43
a massive blind spot in human knowledge, right?
1:46
Because the ocean isn't just a flat surface we
1:48
sail cargo ships across. Not at all. It's a massive
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three -dimensional living space. I mean, it provides
1:54
the overwhelming majority of our planet's habitable
1:57
volume. And that right there is the ultimate
2:00
mission for this deep dive. For you listening,
2:03
we are heading down into that overwhelming majority
2:06
of Earth's living space. We're going to explore
2:08
a realm that operates under entirely different
2:11
rules of physics, chemistry, and biology. And
2:14
we'll figure out why our dry, sunlit lives on
2:17
land completely depend on what happens in the
2:19
pitch black. I love it. So to appreciate what
2:24
is down there, we probably first need to define
2:26
the territory. and the physical barriers keeping
2:30
us out. Yeah, definitely. So we generally define
2:32
the deep ocean as anything below about 200 meters.
2:35
200 meters, okay. Yeah, that's the twilight boundary
2:37
where sunlight becomes just too faint for photosynthesis.
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So the solar power plant shuts down entirely,
2:43
and it just keeps dropping from there. Right.
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I mean, the average depth of the ocean is around
2:47
3 ,700 meters. And if you go to the Mariana Trench
2:50
down to Challenger Deep, you are looking at a
2:53
drop of nearly 11 kilometers. 11 kilometers.
2:55
I mean, you could take Mount Everest. Drop it
2:58
into that trench and you would still have, what,
3:00
roughly two kilometers of water resting on top
3:02
of the summit? Yeah, roughly two kilometers.
3:04
The scale is dizzying. But the true physical
3:07
challenge of going down that far isn't just the
3:10
distance. It's the immense pressure. Oh, right.
3:12
The weight of the water. Exactly. For every 10
3:16
meters you descend, the weight of the water column
3:18
above you increases the pressure by roughly one
3:21
atmosphere. So by the time you reach the bottom
3:23
of Challenger Deep, you're under roughly 1 ,100
3:26
atmospheres. Yeah. And to put that in perspective,
3:29
imagine a small car just balanced on your thumb.
3:32
Wait, an entire car on my thumb? An entire car.
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That is the equivalent crushing force pressing
3:38
on every single square centimeter of space down
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there. Oh, my God. Yeah. This is why deep sea
3:44
submersibles are engineered with these immensely
3:46
thick titanium spheres and why we rely so heavily
3:49
on remotely operated underwater drones. Sending
3:52
humans into that environment is just an engineering
3:55
nightmare. Right, which makes total sense. I
3:57
understand why titanium works. Yeah. But this
3:59
actually brings up a biological contradiction
4:01
that genuinely confused me during our research.
4:04
Oh, about the fish. Yes. If a heavily engineered
4:07
submarine can implode under that force, how on
4:10
earth does a squishy fish survive? Why doesn't
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an octopus just get turned into a pancake? It's
4:15
a great question, and it's all about what they
4:17
lack. Pressure is primarily destructive to spaces
4:20
filled with gas. Okay. So if you take an empty
4:23
sealed plastic water bottle and dive into a pool,
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the pressure squeezes the air inside, crumpling
4:29
the plastic. Ah, right. But if I fill that water
4:32
bottle completely to the brim with water and
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screw the cap on tight, I can take it as deep
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as I want. The bottle won't change shape because
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liquids don't really compress. That is the exact
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mechanism. Deep sea organisms do not have gas
4:44
filled spaces. No air at all. None. Shallow water
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fish often use a swim bladder, which is like
4:50
an internal gas balloon, to control their buoyancy.
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But deep sea animals have entirely abandoned
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that evolutionary strategy. Wow. So what are
4:57
they made of then? Their bodies are constructed
4:59
mostly of water, lipids, and solid tissues. Because
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those materials are largely incompressible, the
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internal pressure of the fish naturally equalizes
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with the immense external pressure. Just no empty
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space to crush. Exactly. But wait, doesn't that
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extreme pressure mess with their actual biology
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at a microscopic level? I mean, beyond just squishing
5:19
them. Oh, it does. And they have adapted to it
5:21
beautifully. Deep sea creatures have these unique
5:24
cellular membranes and specialized proteins that
5:27
maintain their structural integrity under forces
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that would literally twist and deform the proteins
5:33
in our own bodies. So they are biochemically
5:36
engineered for the crush. They really are. Which,
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you know, completely explains the tragic misunderstanding
5:41
of the blobfish. Oh, poor blobfish. Right. I
5:44
mean, it constantly gets voted the world's ugliest
5:47
animal because those viral photos show it looking
5:50
like a droopy, miserable pile of pink jelly.
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It is a deeply unfair reputation. I mean, you
5:55
are looking at a creature that has been violently
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dragged up. thousands of meters to the surface.
6:00
It is suffering catastrophic decompression damage.
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It's expanding. Yeah, down at its natural depth,
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under all that pressure, a blobfish looks like
6:08
a perfectly ordinary, structurally sound fish.
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So taking a blobfish to the surface is basically
6:13
like taking a human and suddenly dropping them
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into the vacuum of space. Pretty much. We wouldn't
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look our best either. So, okay, they survived
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the pressure perfectly well, but... they still
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live in absolute darkness. I mean, below one
6:29
kilometer, no sunlight penetrates at all. None.
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So how do they find... food or mates if they
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literally can't see anything. Well, that is the
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beautiful paradox of the deep sea. It is completely
6:40
isolated from the sun, but it's not dark. Wait,
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it's not? Not at all. It is heavily illuminated
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by bioluminescence. So living organisms creating
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their own light through internal chemical reactions.
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Wow. Yeah, we found estimates suggesting that
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the vast majority of deep sea species can produce
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light, which is wild because that makes bioluminescence
7:00
arguably the most common form of communication
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on the planet. It absolutely is. But I have to
7:04
challenge this logic for a second. If I am a
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small, vulnerable fish in an ocean full of predators,
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turning on a bright biological flashlight seems
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like a terrible idea. Aren't you just putting
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a neon eat me sign on your own back? It sounds
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like it, right? But it is an incredibly high
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stakes visual arms race and context is everything.
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You only use light when it gives you a distinct
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tactical advantage. Okay, give me an example.
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Well, the angler fish, for example, uses it offensively.
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It dangles a glowing bioluminescent lure in front
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of its massive jaws. Oh, right, like a fishing
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pole. Exactly. A smaller fish sees a faint glowing
7:39
dot, thinks it might be something to eat, swims
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over and just walks right into a trap. Ouch.
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So that's hunting. But what about defense? Think
7:48
about a squid. In shallow water, a squid shoots
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a cloud of dark ink to blind a predator. Right.
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But in the pitch black of the deep ocean, dark
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ink does nothing. So instead, certain deep sea
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squid eject a thick, luminous cloud of glowing
8:04
biomatter to temporarily blind and disorient
8:08
their predator while the squid jets away into
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the darkness. Are you kidding? It's literally
8:12
a biological flashback. It really is. That is
8:14
brilliant. But my absolute favorite strategy
8:17
we came across in the research is using light
8:19
to hide. Counter -illumination. Yes. It sounds
8:22
deeply counterintuitive, but it is a masterpiece
8:25
of evolution. It really is. So in the upper ranges
8:27
of the deep sea, the twilight zone, there is
8:30
a highly diluted, incredibly faint blue light
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filtering down from the surface. Okay, so if
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a fish is swimming through that twilight zone,
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a predator... Looking up from below, we'd see
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the fish's dark silhouette blocking that faint
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surface light, right? Exactly. The shadow is
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what gets you killed. So these animals have evolved
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specialized light -producing organs on their
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undersides. On their bellies. Right. They carefully
8:55
modulate the intensity and color of their belly
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lights to perfectly match the dim light coming
9:00
from the surface. They're so smart. By doing
9:03
this, they effectively erase their own silhouette
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from anything looking up. they render themselves
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invisible. And if the camouflage fails, there's
9:10
always the burglar alarm strategy. Oh, yeah.
9:13
The burglar alarm is great. I love this one.
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If a small glowing jellyfish gets grabbed by
9:19
a crab and it can't fight back, it just flashes
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all of its lights as violently as possible, basically
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screaming into the void, hoping to attract an
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even bigger predator to come and eat the crab.
9:31
Yeah, the enemy of my enemy is a very convenient
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distraction. Exactly. But, um... All this flashing,
9:36
hunting, and fleeing implies these animals have
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a lot of energy to burn. And we established that
9:41
without sunlight, there are no plants. There's
9:44
no photosynthesis at the base of the food web.
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Right. So what is this vast, glowing ecosystem
9:49
actually eating? Well, food scarcity is the defining
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constraint of the deep ocean. Because they cannot
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harvest energy from the sun, nearly all life
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down there relies on gravity. Gravity. They eat
10:00
what falls from above. Scientists call it marine
10:03
snow. Okay, marine snow. It sounds incredibly
10:05
poetic until you learn what it's actually made
10:08
of. Yeah, it's not so poetic then. Marine snow
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is a slow, endless, drifting shower of dead plankton,
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shed skin, fecal matter, and decaying organic
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debris. Just falling from the vibrant, shallow
10:20
waters down into the abyss. Yes, it is literally
10:23
a rain of leftovers and waste. And that sounds
10:27
like a starvation diet. I mean, how do you build
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an entire ecosystem on such a sparse food source?
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By drastically slowing down the pace of life,
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most deep sea animals have incredibly slow metabolisms.
10:40
Right. They move lethargically to conserve energy,
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they grow very slowly, and they can live for
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centuries. Wow. And I guess when a meal does
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drift by, you just cannot afford to miss it.
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No. Which explains the terrifying anatomy of
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things like the gulper eel. I mean, you see these
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fish with unhinged jaws and stomachs that can
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expand to hold prey larger than they are. Yeah,
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you eat whatever you can fit in your mouth because
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you just don't know if you'll see food again
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for months. Right. But occasionally they do hit
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the jackpot. If something massive dies at the
11:09
surface, like a whale, the carcass will eventually
11:12
sink all the way to the seafloor. Oh, whale fall.
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Exactly. A whale fall creates an instant massive
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influx of energy. It spawns a localized, highly
11:22
active ecosystem that can persist for decades.
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You get different waves of scavengers, bone -eating
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worms, and bacteria systematically breaking down
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the carcass. So for a very long time, marine
11:33
biology operated on the assumption that all life
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in the deep sea was this trickle -down economy
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completely dependent on the sun. Yes. Whether
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it was falling plankton or a dead whale, the
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original energy source was always solar. But
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then came the 1977 Galapagos Rift expedition.
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Oh, yeah. Which completely broke that paradigm.
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Yeah, we have to talk about this. It remains
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one of the most profound biological discoveries
11:55
in human history. Researchers were surveying
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the ocean floor and they stumbled upon hydrothermal
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vents. And what are those exactly? They are essentially
12:03
deep sea geysers. Icy seawater seeps down through
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fissures in the Earth's crust. It interacts with
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scorching hot volcanic magma and then violently
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jets back out into the ocean. And this water
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is loaded with dissolved minerals and it is superheated,
12:16
right? Like some of these vents known as black
12:19
smokers are blasting out water that exceeds 300
12:22
degrees Celsius. They are. Wait, 300 degrees
12:25
is triple the boiling point of water. How is
12:28
it not just turning into a massive steam explosion
12:30
down there? Because of that crushing pressure
12:32
we discussed earlier. Oh, right, the weight.
12:34
Yeah, the weight of the water column physically
12:36
prevents the water molecules from expanding into
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a gas. It remains a superheated, highly toxic
12:42
liquid. That is insane. But honestly, the temperature
12:45
wasn't the biggest shock. It was the life crowded
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around it. Right, they found these dense, thriving
12:50
alien landscapes down there. Meter -long tube
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wars. worms with bright red tips, massive clusters
12:56
of pale clams, blind crabs, basically an entire
12:59
ecosystem clustered around boiling toxic geysers.
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And the mind -bending reality is that nothing
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in this ecosystem relies on the sun. Nothing
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at all. Nothing. The base of the food web here
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isn't a plant performing photosynthesis. It is
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bacteria performing chemosynthesis. And this
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is the mechanic that changes everything, right?
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Instead of using light to create food, these
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bacteria... extract chemical energy directly
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from hydrogen sulfide. Exactly. A compound that
13:28
smells like rotten eggs and is lethal to most
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terrestrial life. Lethal to us, but they use
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that chemical energy to produce organic matter.
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They're literally eating toxic volcanic soup.
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They are. And the surrounding animals have evolved
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astonishing ways to harness this. Take those
13:46
giant tube rooms you mentioned. Yeah. They are
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complex animals, but they don't have mouths,
13:50
they don't have stomachs, and they don't have
13:51
a digestive tract. Wait, so how do they eat?
13:54
They don't, at least not in any traditional sense.
13:56
The worms house massive colonies of these chemosynthetic
14:00
bacteria deep inside their own tissues. Wow.
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Inside them? Yeah. The worm's red plumes absorb
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hydrogen sulfide and oxygen directly from the
14:08
seawater and deliver it to the bacteria. The
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bacteria process the toxic chemicals into usable
14:13
carbon compounds, and the worm simply absorbs
14:15
what the bacteria produce. It is a flawlessly
14:18
integrated biological partnership. It truly is.
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It is just wild to think about. I mean, we are
14:24
constantly looking for alien life in space, but
14:27
the blueprint for alien life is just... sitting
14:31
at the bottom of the Pacific. Well, that is exactly
14:33
how astrobiologists view it. Proving that life
14:36
can thrive independently of a star drastically
14:38
altered the search for extraterrestrial life.
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Because it opens up so many possibilities. Absolutely.
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We know that icy moons in our solar system, like
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Jupiter's Europa and Saturn's Enceladus, have
14:50
these deep liquid saltwater oceans trapped beneath
14:54
their frozen crusts. And scientists believe those
14:56
moons likely have volcanic activity at their
14:59
rocky core. Right. Meaning they almost certainly
15:01
have hydrothermal vents. Oh, wow. Yeah. If life
15:04
on Earth can flourish around hot rocks and chemicals
15:07
and total darkness, those moons are now prime
15:10
targets for discovering biological life beyond
15:12
our planet. That is incredible. And furthermore,
15:14
these vents are now a leading theory for where
15:17
life on Earth originally began. They provide
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the heat, the mineral catalysts, and the protection
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from a harsh radiation -bombarded early atmosphere.
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So we have biological flashbangs, underwater
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volcanic food webs, and potentially the origins
15:32
of life itself. It is endlessly fascinating.
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It really is. But, you know, I want to pivot
15:37
to something more immediate. For you listening,
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maybe you live hundreds of miles inland. You
15:42
maybe never think about the ocean. But this bizarre,
15:45
extreme environment is actually dictating the
15:48
weather outside your front door right now, isn't
15:50
it? Without question. The deep ocean is the unsung
15:53
hero, the giant atmospheric regulator of our
15:57
climate system. First off, it's an enormous heat
15:59
sink. Okay, a heat sink. Over the last century,
16:02
human activity has trapped vast amounts of excess
16:05
heat in the atmosphere. The ocean has quietly
16:08
absorbed over 90 % of that excess heat. Over
16:11
90%. So if the ocean wasn't acting as a planetary
16:14
thermal shield, the surface temperatures we experience
16:17
on land would already be radically higher. Oh,
16:19
unlivably higher. But the ocean doesn't just
16:21
store heat statically. It actively moves it around
16:24
the globe through something called thermohaline
16:26
circulation, which is often referred to as the
16:28
global conveyor belt. So let's break down how
16:31
that pump actually works. What is physically
16:33
moving millions of gallons of water across the
16:36
planet? It is driven entirely by density, which
16:39
is controlled by temperature and salinity. So
16:42
how salty the water is. Okay, temperature and
16:45
salt. Exactly. In the North Atlantic, cold, salty
16:48
water becomes extremely dense and heavy. It sinks
16:51
deep into the ocean basin. Right. And as it plunges,
16:55
it creates a massive drawing force, basically
16:57
pulling warmer surface water from the tropics
17:00
up to replace it. So it's pulling warm water
17:03
north, which dictates regional climates like
17:05
keeping northern Europe relatively temperate
17:07
instead of freezing. Yes. And that cold, deep
17:09
water then slowly creeps along the seafloor across
17:12
the entire globe, eventually warming. and rising
17:15
back to the surface in the Pacific and Indian
17:17
Oceans. And how long does that take? It takes
17:19
about a thousand years for a single drop of water
17:21
to complete the entire circuit. A thousand years.
17:24
It's just a colossal, slow -moving planetary
17:27
air conditioner. It really is. But it is also
17:30
acting as a carbon sponge, absorbing roughly
17:33
a third of all the carbon dioxide we emit. Right.
17:36
And there is a massive hidden cost to that. It
17:38
is soaking up all this CO2, which triggers a
17:41
process called ocean acidification. I want to
17:45
really dig into the mechanics of this because
17:47
it is terrifying. It is a huge concern. How does
17:50
adding carbon dioxide physically harm a crab
17:53
or a coral reef? It is basically a chemical chain
17:57
reaction. When carbon dioxide dissolves into
18:00
seawater, it forms carbonic acid. This process
18:03
releases free hydrogen ions into the water. And
18:06
why are hydrogen ions a problem? Because they
18:09
are highly reactive thieves. Marine life. From
18:12
massive coral structures to tiny crabs, oysters,
18:15
and crucial plankton at the base of the food
18:17
web, they all rely on a molecule called carbonate
18:19
to build their shells and skeletons. Okay, so
18:21
they pull carbonate out of the water like microscopic
18:23
building blocks. Exactly. But the hydrogen ions
18:26
steal those blocks. The excess hydrogen ions
18:28
bond with the free carbonate before the marine
18:31
animals can get to it. They are literally pulling
18:33
the building materials right out of the water.
18:35
Which forces the animals to expend far more energy
18:38
just to maintain their shells. Yes. And if the
18:40
acidity drops low enough, existing shells can
18:43
physically begin to dissolve while the animal
18:46
is still alive. That is so bleak. I mean, if
18:48
the plankton at the very foundation of the food
18:50
web lose the ability to build their shells, the
18:54
entire structure collapses upward. It does. Which
18:57
makes this final topic we need to cover. Incredibly
19:00
tense. Just as we are realizing how heavily our
19:04
climate stability relies on this fragile deep
19:07
sea ecosystem, we're also looking at sparking
19:10
a massive industrial gold rush at the bottom
19:13
of the ocean. Yeah, though it's more accurately
19:15
a battery rush. A battery rush, right. Because
19:17
down on the vast, muddy, abyssal plains of the
19:20
deep ocean, there are trillions of objects called
19:22
polymetallic nodules. Yes, they look almost exactly
19:25
like dark, charred potatoes just resting on the
19:27
seafloor. But those potato -sized lumps are actually
19:30
incredibly concentrated clusters of manganese,
19:33
nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements. Which
19:36
are the exact metals the global economy is utterly
19:39
desperate for right now. Because the demand is
19:41
soaring, right? I mean, if we're going to transition
19:43
the global energy grid away from fossil fuels,
19:46
we need millions of electric vehicle batteries,
19:49
wind turbines and grid storage systems. We do.
19:52
And the metals required for that transition have
19:55
to come from somewhere. Traditional land -based
19:57
mining carries a very heavy toll. We're talking
19:59
deforestation, toxic runoff, and severe human
20:03
rights abuses. So mining companies and nations
20:06
are basically developing technology to bypass
20:09
land entirely. They want to send massive remote
20:12
-controlled machines miles down to the seafloor
20:14
to vacuum up these nodules and pump them to the
20:17
surface. Which sounds like a clean solution on
20:19
paper, but it presents a profoundly difficult
20:21
dilemma. Right. And we want to look at both sides
20:24
impartially here because... The environmental
20:26
cost in the deep sea is staggering. For starters,
20:29
those polymetallic nodules do not form quickly.
20:32
No, they slowly precipitate out of the seawater
20:35
over eons. They grow only a few millimeters every
20:38
million years. So they are essentially ancient
20:40
geological artifacts. They are. And because they
20:43
are the only hard surfaces on an otherwise muddy
20:45
plain, they act as the anchor points for an incredibly
20:48
delicate ecosystem of deep sea sponges, corals,
20:52
and unique marine life. So if you vacuum up the
20:55
nodules, you strip away the foundation of that
20:57
entire habitat. Exactly. And furthermore, you
21:01
can't just gently pluck them off the bottom.
21:03
These heavy mining machines have to dredge the
21:06
seafloor. Which kicks up massive sediment plumes,
21:09
right? Like underwater dust storms. of mud and
21:12
disturb toxins. Yes. And because there are very
21:15
few strong currents at that depth to disperse
21:17
the mud, these plumes can travel for miles beyond
21:20
the immediate mining site. Just drifting and
21:22
settling. Yeah. And as the sediment slowly settles,
21:25
it can suffocate the surrounding filter feeders
21:27
and burry neighboring ecosystems. Wow. And remember,
21:30
life down there operates on such a slow metabolism
21:33
and long lifespan. Recovering from that kind
21:35
of industrial disturbance wouldn't take years.
21:38
It could take centuries if the ecosystem can
21:40
recover at all. So it is a genuine paradox. We
21:44
desperately need these metals to build the green
21:46
technology that will mitigate climate change.
21:48
But to get them, we are considering heavily industrializing
21:53
the very ocean environment that is currently
21:55
shielding us from the worst effects of that same
21:57
climate change. Yeah, it's a profound irony.
22:00
And we are making these decisions about an environment
22:02
we haven't even finished exploring. I mean, every
22:04
time an expedition goes down to these abyssal
22:06
plains, they discover new species. It's like
22:09
we're debating whether to strip mine a library
22:11
before we have even bothered to read the books.
22:13
What a fantastic analogy. And, you know, what
22:16
an absolute journey today. We started by looking
22:18
at a high -pressure, pitch -black world, assuming
22:22
it was a barren wasteland. Right, but instead
22:24
we found a neon metropolis communicating in flashes
22:27
of chemical light. We found ancient, slow -moving
22:29
creatures waiting for a rain of marine snow.
22:32
We found superheated volcanic vents where toxic
22:36
bacteria rewrite the foundational rules of what
22:39
it means to be alive. And we uncovered a massive
22:42
hidden planetary pump of deep currents that absorbs
22:45
our excess heat, regulates our daily weather,
22:48
and sits at the absolute center of a complex
22:50
global debate over our natural resources and
22:53
our clean energy future. It really brings everything
22:55
right back to that startling realization we started
22:57
with. We truly do possess better maps of the
23:01
craters of Mars, a dead, frozen desert, than
23:04
we do of the largest, most critical habitat on
23:07
our own planet. A habitat that heavily dictates
23:09
our very survival. Exactly. So for you listening,
23:13
as you go about your day to day, just enjoying
23:15
the oxygen you breathe and the stable climate
23:17
you live in, I want to leave you with one final
23:20
thought to mull over. I think I know where you're
23:22
going with this. Think about the blobfish's cellular
23:24
proteins surviving under a thousand atmospheres
23:26
of pressure. Think about the tube worm thriving
23:29
in boiling toxic acid. If deep sea organisms
23:32
have spent millions of years biochemically adapting
23:34
to the most extreme, crushing, hostile environments
23:37
on Earth, what life -saving medicines, revolutionary
23:40
new materials, or scientific breakthroughs might
23:43
be hiding right now within their DNA? It's a
23:46
huge question. It is. And the real question is,
23:48
will we map the ocean floor in time to discover
23:51
them before they are lost to acidification or
23:54
industrialization?