SUNDAY 2ND NOVEMBER, 2014 – UWI TODAY
11
OUR CAMPUS
The world is a very different place
at 6,000 feet under the sea.
Cold, lightless and with crushing pressure, one could easily
assume that few creatures could survive at such a depth. But
in certain places, not only can creatures survive the abyss; they
have formed thriving undersea communities of exotic mussels,
tube worms, prehistoric fish, crabs, shrimp and other species
that are unearthly as they are beautiful. These oases of life in
the deep dark void are known as “cold seeps”, and thanks to an
international teamof explorers, including two Trinidadians and
one faculty member from The UWI, one such seep has been
discovered in the waters to the east of Trinidad and Tobago.
“It’s called a siphonophore,” Dr. Judith Gobin, Lecturer
in Zoology at The UWI’s Department of Life Sciences in the
Faculty of Science and Technology tells me. We are watching a
short video clip of a sea creature that the crew of the Exploration
Vessel
E/V Nautilus
captured on their expedition of the
Southern Caribbean.
The creature is unreal, a column of seemingly both gas and
solidwith two long elegant feathers protruding from it. Up close
the feathers aren’t feathers at all, more like structures made of
transparent flower petals moving independently of each other.
Strangest of all, the siphonophore is a “colony” animal, made
up of many individual organisms living together as one slow
drifting creature.
“It was an amazing experience,” Dr. Gobin says, perhaps
seeing the wonder in my eyes.
For one week, Dr. Gobin and fellow Trinidadian, deep-sea
biologist D. Diva Amon, joined the crew of the
Nautilus
. The
Nautilus carries out research and exploration of the sea floor
on expeditions all over the world, using advanced technology,
24-hour live streaming and inviting scientists, geologists and
other researchers to partake in or even suggest missions. The
ship is part of the Ocean Exploration Trust, which was founded
in 2008 by Dr. Robert Ballard, who led the team that discovered
the wreck of the
Titanic
in 1985.
“It is an incredible operation and it is so well done, so
precise,” Dr. Gobin says. From October 2, 2014, she served as
a member of the
Nautilus’s
science team, working and forming
friendships with crewmembers of various ages, races and
genders from around the world.
“We all had to work two four hour shifts up in the Van (the
ships command centre where the video is viewed and decisions
are made as to what images should be captured). Every shift
there was eight or nine of us in the Van looking at six video
screens. That number included two scientists, videographers
and the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) pilots (the Nautilus
team comprises 28 people while the ship’s crew is about 13-14),”
she describes. “I was really impressed by the amount of women
that were on the crew doing everything the men did. Some of
the ROV operators were women.”
For Dr. Gobin, the ROVs, because of their sophisticated
technology and the intricacy of their operations, were
particularly fascinating.
“When you watch them pilot the
ROV Hercules
it is
extraordinary. It has arms, it has cameras, it has thrusters
that allow it to move in every direction. The arms can pick
up samples and store them in containers. And this is a multi-
million dollar piece of equipment, so the pilots cannot make
mistakes with it,” she says.
Life in the deep
Dr. Gobin joined the team in Grenada, where they
were continuing work they had begun last year exploring
Kick’em Jenny, the Caribbean Sea’s most active deep-sea
volcano. The UWI lecturer had been a member of that 2013
team as well, which she hoped would be able to explore
Trinidad and Tobago’s undersea terrain at that time. However,
circumstances prevented it fromhappening and were it not for
the frantic efforts on Dr. Gobin’s part and support from several
Government ministries it would not have happened this year
either. The area, about 17 nautical miles east of Tobago, is oil
and gas exploration territory, and is primarily the domain of
the multinational energy companies. It took a major effort to
get the necessary permissions for the expedition in the short
timeframe.
“We knew there were seeps but there isn’t much
documentation,” Dr. Gobin explains. “We know the oil
companies have some information on it as well but we do not
have access to that. That’s why this was such a breakthrough,
it was the first time we have underwater video being taken of
a cold seep in our waters. It was exciting for me because it was
all about Trinidad and Tobago. It was about exploration and
understanding what we have.”
And what did they find? In the words of Dr. Gobin, an
amazing “array of life”.
Cold seeps are formed by seismic activity, the shifting
of the earth’s plates on the sea floor. Through that activity,
substances like methane and hydrogen sulfide seep through
fissures into the water, creating “pools”. Bacteria metabolises
these substances, in other words they use it as a source of fuel
to survive. The term for this is “chemosynthesis” – obtaining
energy from chemicals. This is different from “photosynthesis”
obtaining energy from light, which is the basis of life as we
know it, but which is impossible in the lightless environment
of the deep sea.
These bacteria form the base of the cold seep food chain,
either as bacterial “mats” that other species can feed from
directly, or through symbiotic relationships with species like
mussels. At the Trinidad cold seep the
Nautilus
crew found a
massive community of mussels and tubeworms.
“We found the largest mussels ever recorded last year at
Kick’emJenny
(the species
Bathymodiolus
),” Dr. Gobin said.
“This year the scientists were saying that here in Trinidad, it was
the largest community of mussels that they had ever seen.”
The cold seep food chain can include snails, crabs,
shrimp, certain species of deep-sea fish and octopus. This is
all remarkable because these creatures are living in a lightless
environment in temperatures as low as 4 degrees Celsius and
120 atmospheres of pressure (120 times the pressure we are
accustomed to).
“These deep-sea organisms have to be adapted to the
pressure, the lack of oxygen, light and food. Many of these
animals are blind,” Dr. Gobin said.
So what’s next for Dr. Gobin after this enormous find?
“For a coastal person (Dr. Gobin specialises in marine
biology) this experience made me very interested in the deep
sea. I will definitely do more deep-sea work. My trip last year
(to
Kick’em Jenny
) was the highlight of my career and this year
was outstanding because it was in Trinidad and Tobago.”
Looking at the siphonophore, gliding along in that hidden
world so far beneath the waves, who wouldn’t want to know
more?
Secret Life on the Sea Floor
Dr. Judith Gobin takes part in landmark expedition to T&T’s cold seep
Chemosynthetic
Bathymodiolus
mussels with
Alvinocaris
shrimp and amphipods.
Dr. Judith Gobin (left) and Dr. Diva Amon (right) in front of
ROV Hercules
Dr. Diva Amon (left) and Dr. Judith Gobin (right)
measuring some of the
Bathymodiolus
mussels sampled
from the cold seeps
An overview of one of the cold seep sites found off
Trinidad and Tobago.
