How Do Scientists Explore a Place Humans Can’t Survive?

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Imagine trying to explore Mount Everest
without even setting foot on the mountain.

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That's essentially what ocean scientists
do every time they study the deep sea.

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The only difference?

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Instead of climbing nearly nine kilometers
up, they're exploring thousands of

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meters down into a place where a human
couldn't survive more than a few moments.

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Probably less than that, if
you really think about it.

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This is the How to Protect the Ocean
podcast, your weekday ocean news update.

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If you care about staying informed on
the ocean every single weekday, Monday

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to Friday, hit that follow button right
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That's speakupforblue.com/patreon.

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Welcome to part three of our four-part
series leading up to Friday's

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interview with DFO scientist and
an Ocean Networks Canada educator,

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all on exploring Canada's deep sea.

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On Monday, we learned that we've only
explored a small fraction of the deep sea.

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Yesterday, we discovered that
the mysterious world is actually

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filled with incredible marine life.

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Today we're answering perhaps
the biggest question yet.

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How in the heck do scientists
actually explore a place

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humans can't even safely visit?

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The answer is one of the greatest
technological success stories

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you've probably never heard about.

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Let's be honest.

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Humans weren't built for
the deep sea ocean at all.

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By the time you reach 1,000 meters
below the surface, the pressure

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is around 100 times greater than
that you're experiencing right now.

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So you go deeper, and that
pressure continues to increase.

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At the deepest part of the ocean,
it's enough to crush an ordinary

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submarine like an empty soda can.

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It's completely dark.

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The water hovers just above freezing.

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There's no GPS.

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Radio signals don't work underwater.

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Even communicating with equipment
becomes incredibly difficult.

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So instead of sending people,
scientists send robots.

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The workhorse of deep sea exploration
is something called an ROV.

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That stands for remotely operated vehicle.

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Think of it as an underwater
robot that's connected to a ship

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on the surface by a long cable.

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Operators on board use joysticks,
cameras, and sensors to guide

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the vehicle across the sea floor.

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Modern ROVs aren't just cameras,
they're floating laboratories.

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They can collect rocks, take water
samples, measure temperature,

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capture high-definition video, pick
up delicate corals, even retrieve

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tiny animals for scientific study.

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It's like having a marine biologist,
a geologist, a photographer, and

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a robotic engineer all working
together through one machine.

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And because they're operated from the
ship, scientists can spend hours exploring

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places no diver could ever reach.

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Even if you dive at 100 feet.

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I go diving at 100 feet often.

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I'm not a big fan of it
because it's really deep.

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I don't love it to be that deep.

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But what I do when I've gone
down there, I spend like maybe

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15 minutes at the bottom time.

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Imagine being able to spend hours
looking through a monitor and seeing

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all this wonderful, amazing stuff.

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In fact, if you've even seen any of
the deep sea stuff that Schmidt Ocean

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Institute has put out, or Monterey Bay
has put out, or even Ocean Networks

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Canada put out, they have amazing
footage of the deep sea that you

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could even see from any social media.

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If you've ever go on any of their
social media, you get to see that

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stuff, and it's absolutely amazing.

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Now, before an ROV ever enters the water,
scientists need to know where to send it.

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That's where another incredible
technology comes in, the multi-beam sonar.

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I have to admit, I always
wanted a multi-beam sonar.

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It's a weird thing, I know.

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I've always wanted one, though.

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I've always wanted one to put on my boat.

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Did I say I wanted a boat as well?

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I always wanted one to put on my boat.

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In fact, when I did my master's, I
was doing my GIS analyst diploma at

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the same time at COGS, the Centre
of Geographic Science in Nova

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Scotia, it was a great program.

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But I remember driving an hour and a half
each way to school and back to my home

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in Halifax, and I would pick up some
people on the way and bring some people

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home on the weekend and stuff like that.

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And I had a friend, Chris, and
we actually discussed starting a

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multi-beam sonar company at one point.

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We were gonna buy multi-beam sonars, we
were gonna have a boat, we were gonna

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do all this mapping of the ocean, of
the deep sea, and everything like that.

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Never happened, of course, but
multi-beam sonars are amazing.

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Instead of using light, ships send
sound waves towards the sea floor.

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Those sound waves bounce back,
allowing computers to create detailed

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maps of underwater landscapes.

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So imagine mowing your lawn.

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You don't just walk randomly.

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You move back and forth in organized lines
until you've covered every single section.

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Ocean mapping works much the same way.

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Research vessels carefully track
back and forth across the ocean,

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collecting millions of sound
measurements as they go along.

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Now, if you picture it like a lawn,
like mowing your lawn, for me, I

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go back and forth, back and forth
to make sure I don't miss anything.

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It takes me a little bit
longer, but I do that.

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But a lot of times if you're just
going forward, you're going one

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track, you go around another track.

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But the lines are incredibly
thin 'cause the multi-beam

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only goes a certain range down.

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So as it comes down, it's like a cone
shape from the bottom of the boat all

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the way down to the surface of the ocean.

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You get this cone shape, and
it only covers a certain swath.

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So the lines are gonna try and overlap
that swath to make sure you get all

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the data in this specific section.

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You're not able to do a
lot depending on the swath.

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So you're not covering a lot of area, but
it is kind of interesting, in that way.

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But eventually, like, the measurements
become detailed maps, and scientists

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can identify underwater mountains
called seamounts, which are really cool.

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They're deep canyons, steep cliffs,
ancient landslides, potential coral

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habitats, places where currents bring
nutrients that attract marine life.

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And those maps become the
guidebook for future exploration.

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And to be honest, if you wanna really
look for exploration, there's an

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organization called Map the Gaps.

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It's a client of ours at piscesoceans.ca
if you wanna go to our website.

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But Map the Gaps is an organization.

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I'll put the link in the show notes.

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It's an organization that's out to map
the bottom of the ocean, and actually

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has a really cool plan where you can
basically purchase a hex to get it

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actually mapped out, and they'll go
out and map it out and stuff like that.

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It's really kind of a cool program.

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Check it out, Map the Gaps.

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I'm gonna put the link in the
show notes so you can check

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that out, but it's pretty cool.

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Now here's the exciting part.

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Every new map often revealed
something nobody expected: a ridge

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that wasn't there before, a canyon
that was much deeper than scientists

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had thought, or a habitat that
deserves a bit of a closer look.

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Sometimes the map itself
becomes the discovery.

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And that's a really kind of a cool thing,
'cause you've probably discovered this

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podcast just by searching out ocean.

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You're trying to search a keyword.

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Imagine doing it using a multi-beam sonar
and being able to discover something

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that's really cool, like a seamount.

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A seamount is basically
these mountains, right?

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Mountains that are in the ocean, and
they have incredible biodiversity

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at the top of that seamount.

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And so it's a really cool thing.

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But it's a very unique thing that people,
when they pass by, they kinda discover.

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Just like you were probably searching
for something in the ocean, and you

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passed by and you got to my podcast
about how to protect the ocean.

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You're like, "I need to check this
out." And now you're addicted

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because this is such great material.

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But if you've just discovered this
and you wanna come back to it, and

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you may not remember the name or
whatever that might be, hit the follow

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button so you don't miss any other
episode, and you can always get this

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rich, rich information, biodiverse
information, or diverse information.

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Not biodiverse, I guess,
but it's diverse for sure.

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We definitely cover a lot of
things on ocean conservation.

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But the technology in the deep
sea ocean keeps getting better.

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Scientists are now combining underwater
robots with artificial intelligence, AI,

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to analyze thousands of hours of video.

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So think about this, like, if you think
about the effort that it takes to go on

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out on a boat, gather all the data, and
then be able to bring all that back.

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Even Ocean Networks Canada, the
amount of data that they pump

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through, it's, like, by the minute.

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They can even do it by the
second if they really wanted to.

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That all has to be analyzed because
you can't understand the ocean without

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analyzing the data that you actually
spent millions upon millions upon

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millions of dollars to gather, right?

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To collect.

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So you gotta use AI and machine
learning to actually process the data.

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And that's gonna become a bigger
and bigger part of actually

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understanding what data's coming
in and really identifying trends.

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So instead of watching every minute
of a video themselves, the AI can help

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identify corals, sponges, fish, and
other animals much more quickly.

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Researchers are also using
DNA, environmental DNA to be

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specific, what we call eDNA.

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Every animal leaves tiny traces of
their genetic material in the water.

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By collecting the seawater, scientists
can often determine which species

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are nearby without even seeing them.

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Now, it does require that we have
a genetic makeup of that species.

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So species that we haven't discovered
yet, we may have that eDNA in

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there, but we just don't know what
that DNA is or who it belongs to.

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So until we start discovering species
and get that makeup of that genome,

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we won't really know new species in
there 'cause we don't have their DNA.

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As we get better in that respect,
we'll get more and more of that DNA,

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and we'll be able to identify it.

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It's a little like walking into a
room after someone has left and still

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being able to tell that who was there.

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Like a smell, I guess, in a way.

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Sometimes that's good, sometimes it's
not so good when, when you're walking

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in a room and you hear, and you smell
something that you know that person wears.

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That smell of a cologne of some
sort or a natural smell or whatever.

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Sometimes it's not that great.

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It's BO, but we're not gonna get
into that because that's gross and

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we're not gonna talk about that.

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But autonomous underwater vehicles,
we are gonna talk about, or AUVs,

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they take exploration even further.

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So unlike ROVs, they don't need a
cable to connect them to a ship.

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They're programmed with a mission, they're
like an underwater drone, and explore

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on their own before returning the data.

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So when you put all these technologies
together, something remarkable happens.

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We begin to see ocean in ways that
simply weren't possible 20 years ago.

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Scientists can explore deeper, stay
underwater longer, collect more

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information, and answer bigger questions.

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But here's what I find the most inspiring.

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Technology doesn't replace the scientists.

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It gives scientists just better
tools to ask better questions.

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Every piece of data still needs
a scientist to interpret it.

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And every video still needs someone to
notice something unusual, because AI and

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machine learning and all that can still
miss something that the naked eye can see.

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Every discovery begins with curiosity.

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And that's exactly what you're gonna
hear about in Friday's interview, because

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we're gonna be feeding people's curiosity
by talking about this educational

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project where these researchers, using
these incredible technologies can

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answer questions about Canada's deep
Pacific Ocean and then share that live

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sometimes as they're doing these deep sea
exploration surveys with people watching

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it live, like students and so forth.

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Now tomorrow we're gonna finish
up our series, our four-part

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series, by looking at perhaps the
most important question of all.

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Why does exploration matter?

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We spend the time, the money,
the effort exploring places

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most people will never visit.

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Because exploration isn't the goal.

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Protection is.

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And understanding is.

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That's why we protect it.

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And that's where the story
becomes even more important.

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The deep sea is too extreme for humans
to explore directly, but technology is

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allowing us to discover new ecosystems
and understanding our planet in ways that

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weren't possible just a generation ago.

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It's an incredible time to be a scientist.

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It's an incredible time to be an engineer.

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It's an incredible time to be curious
about the ocean 'cause we're actually

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able to see, just regular people,
not scientists, just people that are

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going, minding their own business,
you can actually see what's in the

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deep sea by going on Ocean Networks
Canada and looking at their live feeds.

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You can go on Smith Ocean Institute on
their live feeds or their videos that

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they have from their deep sea exploration.

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There are so many videos being shared,
it's actually quite incredible.

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Some of the videos that we've been
able to see have been able to point

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out and get, sometimes for the first
time, deep sea squid, giant squid on

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camera, which is absolutely incredible,
and we continue to find more and more

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things as we continue to explore.

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By using these amazing technologies that
cost money and, had to go through a

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lot of trial and error to get into the
deep sea and be able to do what they do

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right, just as what we talked about today.

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And I'm so excited that I was
able to bring that to you.

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But I would love to hear what you think.

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Hit me up on Instagram
or on TikTok in my DMs.

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Let me know how you feel about these
episodes and what you're learning.

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I always like to know what
you'd wanna learn as well.

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You can hit me up on those DMs or
on the social platforms by going

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to the show notes, where I'm also
gonna put in Map the Gap's website.

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And of course, if you would like
to support the show, you can go

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to speakupforblue.com/patreon.

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Thank you so much for joining
me on today's episode of the How

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to Protect the Ocean podcast.

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I am your host, Andrew Lewin.

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Have a great day.

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We'll talk to you next time,
and happy conservation.