Chapter 14
EPILOGUE:
EXPLORATION, OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENTATION
Paul A. TYLER
Where does deep-sea biology go from here? As with
all science there are many stages in the intellectual
and practical development of the subject. Firstly there
is exploration and the discovery of the phenomena.
This is followed by observation that leads to a better
understanding of the subject and finally there is experimentation that allows one to fully dissect the processes
that contribute to the cause and function of the subject.
The fourth, and essentially non-scientific aspect, is the
economic exploitation of an environment. Deep-sea
biology is one of the few areas of science, especially
natural science, where the scientific community is
involved in the first three aspects but should not ignore
the last.
EXPLORATION
The ‘heroic’ age of deep-sea exploration started
with the Porcupine and Challenger expeditions and
culminated in the Galathea expedition of 1950–1952.
This era demonstrated that there was a fauna at all
depths in the sea. Since the ‘heroic’ age exploration
has continued, so that many of the major discoveries
in the deep-sea have been as much serendipitous
as planned. The discovery of hydrothermal vents
along the Galapagos Rift in 1977 showed there were
major ecosystems on earth independent of sunlight,
and parallel chemosynthetic communities are now
known from cold seeps along both active and passive
continental margins. Very recently, the ‘Lost City’
along the mid-Atlantic ridge has been discovered, in
which hydrothermal chimneys are located on crust
1.5 My old, ~15 km off the ridge axis. The chimneys
are formed of carbonates rather than sulphides, and
hydrothermal fluid is relatively low in temperature
(40 to 75ºC) and high in pH (9 to 9.8) (Kelly et al.,
2001).
Once discovered, such phenomena as vents and seeps
have become foci for observation and experimentation;
but still vast areas of the deep ocean remain to be
explored. With the exception of the North Atlantic, the
fauna of the great abyssal plains under the oligotrophic
waters of the great subtropical gyres of the oceans
remains poorly known. Very little is known of the
vast sedimentary siliceous oozes of the open deep
circumpolar Southern Ocean or the fauna under the
ice-covered areas of the Arctic and Antarctic (see
Chapter 8), although interest in both non-vent and vent
environments in the ice-covered Arctic is accelerating
(Kr¨ oncke et al., 2000; Edwards et al., 2001).
Little is known about the global distribution of
hydrothermal vents, or even whether they exist at
higher latitudes (Van Dover, 2000). Cold seeps would
appear to be the most commonly discovered new sites
at present, the latest reports of cold seeps being in
the Norwegian Sea (Gebruk et al., 2002) and off
Angola. Vents have been point centres for research
along the mid-ocean ridges, but very little is known
of the faunas inhabiting the rocky substrata on the
flanks of the ridges, or along the steep rocky regions
of the continental margin. Exploration of the deep sea
has been limited by technology, and it is only recently
that the technology has become available to sample in
difficult areas within otherwise well-sampled regions
such as the northeast Atlantic (Tyler and Zibrowius,
1992). Such distributional and taxonomic knowledge is
imperative before one can start addressing some of the
fundamental biogeographic questions of the deep-sea
faunas.
A last problem for modern-day exploration of the
deep sea, as with other remote environments, as
473
EPILOGUE:
EXPLORATION, OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENTATION
Paul A. TYLER
Where does deep-sea biology go from here? As with
all science there are many stages in the intellectual
and practical development of the subject. Firstly there
is exploration and the discovery of the phenomena.
This is followed by observation that leads to a better
understanding of the subject and finally there is experimentation that allows one to fully dissect the processes
that contribute to the cause and function of the subject.
The fourth, and essentially non-scientific aspect, is the
economic exploitation of an environment. Deep-sea
biology is one of the few areas of science, especially
natural science, where the scientific community is
involved in the first three aspects but should not ignore
the last.
EXPLORATION
The ‘heroic’ age of deep-sea exploration started
with the Porcupine and Challenger expeditions and
culminated in the Galathea expedition of 1950–1952.
This era demonstrated that there was a fauna at all
depths in the sea. Since the ‘heroic’ age exploration
has continued, so that many of the major discoveries
in the deep-sea have been as much serendipitous
as planned. The discovery of hydrothermal vents
along the Galapagos Rift in 1977 showed there were
major ecosystems on earth independent of sunlight,
and parallel chemosynthetic communities are now
known from cold seeps along both active and passive
continental margins. Very recently, the ‘Lost City’
along the mid-Atlantic ridge has been discovered, in
which hydrothermal chimneys are located on crust
1.5 My old, ~15 km off the ridge axis. The chimneys
are formed of carbonates rather than sulphides, and
hydrothermal fluid is relatively low in temperature
(40 to 75ºC) and high in pH (9 to 9.8) (Kelly et al.,
2001).
Once discovered, such phenomena as vents and seeps
have become foci for observation and experimentation;
but still vast areas of the deep ocean remain to be
explored. With the exception of the North Atlantic, the
fauna of the great abyssal plains under the oligotrophic
waters of the great subtropical gyres of the oceans
remains poorly known. Very little is known of the
vast sedimentary siliceous oozes of the open deep
circumpolar Southern Ocean or the fauna under the
ice-covered areas of the Arctic and Antarctic (see
Chapter 8), although interest in both non-vent and vent
environments in the ice-covered Arctic is accelerating
(Kr¨ oncke et al., 2000; Edwards et al., 2001).
Little is known about the global distribution of
hydrothermal vents, or even whether they exist at
higher latitudes (Van Dover, 2000). Cold seeps would
appear to be the most commonly discovered new sites
at present, the latest reports of cold seeps being in
the Norwegian Sea (Gebruk et al., 2002) and off
Angola. Vents have been point centres for research
along the mid-ocean ridges, but very little is known
of the faunas inhabiting the rocky substrata on the
flanks of the ridges, or along the steep rocky regions
of the continental margin. Exploration of the deep sea
has been limited by technology, and it is only recently
that the technology has become available to sample in
difficult areas within otherwise well-sampled regions
such as the northeast Atlantic (Tyler and Zibrowius,
1992). Such distributional and taxonomic knowledge is
imperative before one can start addressing some of the
fundamental biogeographic questions of the deep-sea
faunas.
A last problem for modern-day exploration of the
deep sea, as with other remote environments, as
473