8
UWI TODAY 100
TH
ISSUE
– SUNDAY 17 DECEMBER, 2017
Shereen Ali is a writer and editor.
RESEARCH
example, can grow to very large sizes, and isopods (ancient
crustaceans with hard external shells and jointed limbs) can
get really quite large. Some of the deep water corals have
evolved there for thousands of years.”
Perhaps the most fascinating thing about life forms
so deep is that many of them, such as the fauna at El
Pilar, find their nourishment from processing methane
rather than sunlight. So instead of photosynthesis, there is
chemosynthesis – life based on chemical energy.
At cold seep sites, microbes use the oxygen in seawater
to oxidize the chemicals in the seep fluids and form the basis
of the food chain there. The bacteria can form thick white
mats, or actually live insidemany of the animals at these seep
sites, including the mussels and tubeworms, and provide
food directly. Other animals may feed on the bacterial mats,
in turn providing food for fish, crabs, octopuses and other
predators. Cold seeps are special oases of life in otherwise
vast oceanic wastelands.
The discovery of methane-fed life at El Pilar throws new
light on the delicate web of life in the deep ocean beds off
our shores. It’s a web all too easily disrupted or destroyed
by future drilling.
So far, T&T has no policies regulating deep sea marine
life exploration and exploitation. And T&T also has no
specific Marine Protected Areas to conserve any special
sites of unique life, whether in shallow seas or deep ocean
areas. This means that almost as fast as we discover new life
and marine habitats, they are at risk of being destroyed by
future mining or industrial operations.
“We in T&T have to wake up and face the reality – and
start paying attention to deep sea areas,” believes Dr. Gobin
– not only for reasons of conservation of marine biodiversity,
but also to plan for wise, sustainable management of our
known and unknown marine resources.
“I attended meetings on Areas Beyond National
Jurisdiction (ABNJ), and at an international level, many
countries are vying to come into the deep sea to explore
and mine phosphates, metallic nodules, gold and other
minerals.That is already happening globally.We are only just
beginning to understand what we have in our nearby deep
sea areas, but we need to know more. Once we get beyond
our EEZ, that becomes open territory. We should be doing
our own research and building our own knowledge base of
these areas, in order to manage them.
“We would like to work with industry and corporate
T&T to develop policies to sustainably manage deep sea
areas, as well as continue the scientific research. It’s about
balancing priorities – because the sea provides so much
more than just minerals. The ocean is a carbon trap and
helps regulate climate change. And there are marine genetic
resources present. Many of our marine species are already
being used in laboratories to create pharmaceuticals;
for example some cancer drugs have come from marine
products. There’s so much more to learn, and do. The
deep sea is a huge resource that we really need to better
understand.”
Dr. Gobin is working on a public outreach project, a
partnership with NIHERST and The UWI, to produce a
five-part educational series (DVD) about Trinidad’s deep sea
biology, using some E/VNautilus footage. Called “Deep Sea
Wonders of the Caribbean,” the German Embassy and Shell
are the two main funders of the project. By early 2018, the
documentary will be available at educational institutions,
with an eventual free online link for public access.
Dr Gobin’s varied interests, spirit of collaboration and
innate sense of balance keep her a verymotivated, passionate
woman scientist who seems to have mastered the secret art
of successful multi-tasking. She affirms: “Even after 35 years,
to this day I absolutely love what I do!”
Links
•
The research paper “Characterization of
methane seep communities in a deep
sea area designated for oil and natural
gas exploitation off Trinidad and Tobago”
was written by scientists Diva Amon,
Judith Gobin, Cindy Lee Van Dover, Lisa
Levin, Leigh Marsh, and Nicole Raineault,
and published on October 30, 2017 in
the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.
Link:
/
articles/10.3389/fmars.2017.00342/full
•
Link to the 2014 E/V Nautilus
research mission:
.
oceanexplorationtrust.org/2014-
expedition
•
Deep Sea Wonders of the Caribbean video
project link:
/
projects/deep-sea-wonders.html
A crab eating a mussel at one of the seep sites off T&T.
PHOTO: OCEAN EXPLORATION TRUST
The E/V Nautilus deploying the
ROV Hercules, an unmanned
remotely operated vehicle that can
gather samples and shoot high
resolution photos and videos of
undersea sites at great depths.
