Preface
I decided to write about my experience at sea on the 8th of October 2002, while
sailing on board the German research vessel F.S. SONNE. Looking out at the
ocean, I suddenly noticed that time was passing too quickly and I seemed to have
more difficulty remembering previous cruises and discoveries. At that time,
I thought this would have been my last cruise and I should summarize what I have
learned during all these years.
Now that I have finished writing this text, I must admit that 2002 was certainly
not the year of my last cruise. Indeed, since then I continued to go to sea every year
until 2005. The Research Vessel F.S. SONNE is particularly important to me
because I have navigated more than 14 months on this ship from 1986 to 2005.
That is more time than I’ve spent on any other research vessel.
The history of our planet Earth is written in the rocks. The record left on the
emerged continents indicates that water has been a major architect shaping our
planet. Since the magma ocean forming our early planet more than 4 billion years
ago cooled and gave rise to blue seawater and the atmosphere, Earth has become a
haven for living organisms. Many species have evolved and disappeared, while
other new ones have appeared and flourished ever since the first organisms, in the
form of bacteria, were born in the earliest periods of Earth’s existence.
As humans, our impact during our short time on Earth is insignificant. Humans
cannot alter the course of Earth’s evolution but rather they have to adapt. Our
living planet is in constant motion; its outer shell is created through the transfer of
molten mantle at spreading ridge axes and will eventually disappear inside the
deep Earth to regenerate itself again.
This book concludes with my last diving experience looking at an area near the
Tonga-Kermadec subduction zone, where old crust is being returned to the mantle
to be re-melted once again. While old lithosphere is disappearing, new crust is
being created to form a volcanic arc.
When looking at a map of the Earth it might appear that the ocean and the
continents are immutable, and one might think that they have always been there,
that nothing has changed since their creation. This is just an illusion due to the brief
time we humans have spent on this planet, as opposed to the Earth’s rocks, which
have a geological time scale and are related to the beginning of the Universe, which
occurred 15 billion years ago.
vii
I decided to write about my experience at sea on the 8th of October 2002, while
sailing on board the German research vessel F.S. SONNE. Looking out at the
ocean, I suddenly noticed that time was passing too quickly and I seemed to have
more difficulty remembering previous cruises and discoveries. At that time,
I thought this would have been my last cruise and I should summarize what I have
learned during all these years.
Now that I have finished writing this text, I must admit that 2002 was certainly
not the year of my last cruise. Indeed, since then I continued to go to sea every year
until 2005. The Research Vessel F.S. SONNE is particularly important to me
because I have navigated more than 14 months on this ship from 1986 to 2005.
That is more time than I’ve spent on any other research vessel.
The history of our planet Earth is written in the rocks. The record left on the
emerged continents indicates that water has been a major architect shaping our
planet. Since the magma ocean forming our early planet more than 4 billion years
ago cooled and gave rise to blue seawater and the atmosphere, Earth has become a
haven for living organisms. Many species have evolved and disappeared, while
other new ones have appeared and flourished ever since the first organisms, in the
form of bacteria, were born in the earliest periods of Earth’s existence.
As humans, our impact during our short time on Earth is insignificant. Humans
cannot alter the course of Earth’s evolution but rather they have to adapt. Our
living planet is in constant motion; its outer shell is created through the transfer of
molten mantle at spreading ridge axes and will eventually disappear inside the
deep Earth to regenerate itself again.
This book concludes with my last diving experience looking at an area near the
Tonga-Kermadec subduction zone, where old crust is being returned to the mantle
to be re-melted once again. While old lithosphere is disappearing, new crust is
being created to form a volcanic arc.
When looking at a map of the Earth it might appear that the ocean and the
continents are immutable, and one might think that they have always been there,
that nothing has changed since their creation. This is just an illusion due to the brief
time we humans have spent on this planet, as opposed to the Earth’s rocks, which
have a geological time scale and are related to the beginning of the Universe, which
occurred 15 billion years ago.
vii