Monday November 6, 2023
NPR —
Life at the bottom of the ocean is extreme. It’s pitch black, the temperature hovers right above freezing and the pressure is immense.
Although many species have evolved to survive and thrive at these depths, the seafloor is very much uninhabitable to humans. In fact, only around a couple dozen people have actually been to the deepest part of the ocean floor, a place known as Challenger Deep.
Marine geographer Dawn Wright is one of those people. “It’s a place that can either be horrifying and terrifying or it can be fascinating and infinitely beautiful. And for me, it was the latter.”
Wright is the chief scientist of the Environmental Systems Research Institute. She is also part of a global race to map the entirety of the world’s ocean by 2030, which experts say is essential not just for pure scientific knowledge, but human safety and technological advancement.