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Publishing September 3, 2024 Available at bookstores everywhere, including: Dive deeper at Copyright Esri 2024. All rights reserved. www.mappingthedeep.com
Foreword I first met Dawn Wright in 2011, at a meeting of the Science Advisory Board of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where I was then deputy administrator and chief scientist. In my enthusiasm at encountering a fellow ocean geologist, I gave Dawn a friendly but perhaps overly vigorous punch in the arm—for which, fortunately, she forgave me. We’ve kept up with each other ever since and, as friends and colleagues, our paths have often crossed. Dawn and I are both explorers and oceanographers, driven by an intense curiosity about this planet, how it works, and how to put our scientific understanding of the Earth to the best possible use. In addition to sharing an academic discipline and an exceptional experience (we’re among the handful of humans who’ve dived to Challenger Deep, the deepest spot on the planet), I believe Dawn and I share something else: a sense of the interconnectedness of life on this planet, and the urgency of preserving it. As an astronaut on three space shuttle missions, and the first US woman to walk in space, I was privileged to see our “blue marble” from a unique perspective. It soon became clear to me that all of us on Earth—all biological species— are inextricably linked. This planet is our life support system. Just as an astronaut needs an intimate understanding of their spacesuit to survive a spacewalk, so do we all depend for survival on understanding deeply how our planet works. Dawn is one of the scientists leading the way in this quest. It’s not just her achievements as an oceanographer, an educator, and a trailblazer that are noteworthy, it’s her life story as well. Hers is an inspiring story of race and identity, with lessons for all of us on diversity, otherness, and the courage it takes to be the only or the “other” in a place. It’s also a tale of succeeding without mentors or role models who look like you, and of holding true to yourself and your goals, no matter what.
mapping the deep viii The story of Dawn’s adventurous life and her historic dive to Challenger Deep makes for a terrific read. I’m sure you will find this book as inspiring and enlightening as I do, an inside account of science and exploration at the edge, expanding our human horizons. Dr. Kathryn D. Sullivan NOAA Administrator 2013–2017 NASA Astronaut (retired) March 1, 2024
200 m The sunlight zone The twilight zone The midnight zone The abyssal zone The hadal zone Challenger Deep 10,935 meters / 6.79 miles Mariana Trench Continental slope Abyssal plain 4,000 m 2,000 m 8,000 m 10,000 m Burj Khalifa (tallest building in the world) 828 meters 6,000 m 7 mi 5 mi 3 mi 1 mi Continental shelf ZONES OF THE DEEP
Chapter 1 THE DIVE JULY 12, 2022 | 8:11 A.M. (LOCAL TIME) LAUNCH +0 HOURS, 0 MINUTES | DEPTH: 0 METERS It’s a bright summer morning on the seemingly infinite expanse of the western Pacific Ocean, just over 200 miles southeast of the island of Guam. From the deck of the DSSV Pressure Drop, nothing but lightly rolling waters can be seen in any direction—that is, except for a spot off the stern of the ship, where you might just make out a curvilinear white shape slipping beneath the surface. Although, at first glance, it might look like something out of a mid-20thcentury science fiction movie, this object is no anachronism. It’s one of the most advanced underwater vessels ever devised, the DSV Limiting Factor. And this patch of sea, otherwise indistinguishable amid the vastness of the Pacific, is special, too: it’s directly above—almost 11 kilometers (7 miles) above—the deepest point in all of Earth’s oceans, a notch in the Mariana Trench known as Challenger Deep. The Mariana Trench is a crescent-shaped chasm in the western Pacific Ocean, spanning more than 2,542 kilometers (1,580 miles); within it lies an even deeper groove, which owes its odd name to the British Royal Navy survey ship HMS Challenger, whose scientists first sounded its depths in 1875. Challenger Deep measures about 11 kilometers (7 miles) long by 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) wide and 10,935 meters (35,876 feet) deep. How deep is that, in human terms? It’s hard to conceive, but, as an approximation, picture six Grand Canyons stacked on top of each other. Another way to think about it: it’s much deeper than Mount Everest is tall. The Limiting Factor is the first and only US-owned vehicle to make multiple descents to Challenger Deep with human beings aboard. (The only other sub that can currently accomplish this is Fendouzhe, or “Striver,” operated by the Chinese
mapping the deep 2 government.) Before its initial visit to Challenger Deep in 2019, only two other human-piloted expeditions had ever made it to such depths. But on this fine day a little more than three years later, the Limiting Factor is embarking on its 19th such dive. It’s an indication of how far deep-sea exploration has come in such a short time that a trek to what was once the most difficult-to-reach place on the planet is now starting to feel almost routine, like catching a flight. And yet there is nothing ordinary about this dive, especially not for the two people in blue jumpsuits who are sealed inside the submersible’s Smart Car– sized cockpit. One of them, Victor Vescovo, is responsible for maneuvering the vessel on its way to and from the bottom of the ocean. It was his quest, launched in 2018, to personally visit the deepest point in every ocean that led to the formation of Caladan Oceanic—a science and technology firm dedicated to increasing humanity’s understanding of the deep. (Strictly speaking, our planet has only one, connected ocean, but it’s traditionally been divided into five major regions: Dawn Wright prepares to enter the Limiting Factor submersible.
the dive 3 the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Southern Oceans.) He’s piloted the Limiting Factor on 15 of its trips to Challenger Deep, but there’s a chance this may be the last time he performs that feat. Having achieved his goal—and so much more— he’s on the verge of selling the undersea exploration system that he envisioned and piloted through its many record-setting expeditions. Victor’s companion on this descent is the oceanographer Dawn Wright, aka Deepsea Dawn. Now the chief scientist of Esri®, the world’s leading geographic information system (GIS) software firm, Dawn has dedicated her life to learning about the ocean—and working to ensure that knowledge of the deep is more widely shared. For Dawn, experiencing Challenger Deep firsthand will be the opportunity of a lifetime. +0 HOURS, 16 MINUTES | −931 METERS Darkness comes quickly beneath the ocean’s surface. Sunlight penetrates only the uppermost 400 meters (1,312 feet) of water, a threshold the Limiting Factor blows through within minutes of sinking under the waves. The next 600 meters (1,968 feet) are fittingly called the twilight zone. This region is believed to be home to more marine life than the rest of the ocean—and much of it provides its own radiance to make up for the lack of natural light. As Dawn says, “It’s exhilarating, and it never gets old, the fact that you’re descending through the lit zone of the ocean, which is beautiful aqua blue, then things slowly turn to gray and then pitch black.” As the Limiting Factor nears the lower extent of the twilight zone, a glow appears through Victor’s porthole, off to the sub’s left. Believing the source to be some kind of bioluminescent life-form, probably jellyfish or siphonophores (wormlike organisms), Victor flashes the sub’s lights. Much to the delight of their human visitors, the creatures respond in kind. This conversation of sorts between nature and machine serves as a fleeting example of the magic of the ocean—a magic that Dawn has felt deeply since her childhood in Hawaii. Dawn, now 62, moved to Hawaii from the East Coast at the age of six, when her mother accepted a teaching position there. She recalls spending much of her time at the beach, swimming and exploring: “That is part of the culture of Hawaii,” she says, “to enjoy but also to hold the ocean as sacred, as life giving. It’s a natural part of everyday life there.” By the age of eight, inspired by watching Jacques Cousteau on TV, Dawn had decided to become an oceanographer. And yet today,
mapping the deep 4 200 m 4,000 m 2,000 m 8,000 m 10,000 m 6,000 m 7 mi 5 mi 3 mi 1 mi +0 h, 16 m +9 h, 53 m 8:11 AM 6:11 PM +0 h, 20 m +4 h, 17 m +6 h, 52 m +4 h, 28 m Dawn and Victor’s dive path.
the dive 5 at one of the high points of her career, she’s feeling a little wistful, because her mother, who died just months ago, isn’t there to witness it. “The ocean has always just been such a natural part of my life … it’s a sacred place to me. When I’m in the ocean, I feel as though I am part of the ocean. —Dawn Wright But Dawn’s participation in this dive is about more than checking an item off a personal bucket list. Her main motivation is the ambitious goal of mapping the entire ocean—70 percent of our planet, which remains largely uncharted. Although creative cartography may mislead us into thinking otherwise, only about a quarter of the seafloor has been mapped, to date, in high resolution. On this mission, Dawn is acting as a flag-bearer for three initiatives: • Seabed 2030, an international effort that aims to map every inch of the ocean in detail by the year 2030. • Map the Gaps, a nonprofit that seeks to increase awareness, accessibility, and equity in ocean mapping. • Adding data and maps from the deepest ocean to ArcGIS® Living Atlas of the World’s extensive collection. ArcGIS Living Atlas is an ever-growing collection of authoritative geographic information, including maps, apps, and data layers, from around the globe. Dawn (left) and Victor Vescovo ready to board the Limiting Factor.
mapping the deep 6 Victor and Caladan are also fully engaged with these ocean-mapping efforts, having donated more than 1.5 million square kilometers (579,153 square miles) of bathymetric data collected over four years of expeditions. And then, of course, there’s the fact of who Dawn is: She’s the first Black person and just the fifth woman ever to make the descent to Challenger Deep. She’s acutely aware of the significance of that fact, and she hopes it will serve to inspire women and people of color to enter realms of science and exploration that were once inaccessible to them, by common practice if not by policy. During her expedition, Dawn (left) simultaneously promotes two ocean mapping initiatives with a banner and a T-shirt. She is pictured here with Rochelle Wigley (right), representing Map the Gaps, also a major flag-bearer for Seabed 2030 and the official mapper on Dawn’s expedition, collecting and processing all the bathymetry for inclusion in the Seabed 2030 compilation.
the dive 7 Dawn is heartened, though, by the number of women who have made, and continue to make, enormous contributions to Caladan’s efforts and to her dive in particular. But she notes that only seven of the 43 people aboard the Pressure Drop during this expedition are women. So, she says, there’s still plenty of work to do, to ensure equitable access to science and technology education—and to encourage women and people of color, like her, to enter the field. +0 HOURS, 20 MINUTES → +4 HOURS, 4 MINUTES −1165 METERS → −10400 METERS If not for its running lights, the Limiting Factor would be engulfed in total darkness for the remaining four-hour descent to the seafloor. The sub traverses three more vertical zones, each with an increasingly foreboding name: the midnight zone (down to 4,000 meters/13,123 feet), the abyssal zone (to 6,000 meters/19,685 feet), and finally, beneath that, the hadal zone, named after Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. This is the most tedious part of the adventure, but fortunately, Dawn (third from left) poses with three other women who were part of Caladan’s 2022 expedition: (from left) Nicole Yamase, the first Pacific Islander to make the descent to Challenger Deep; Kate Wawatai, a Maori New Zealander who is the first female pilot of the Limiting Factor; and Tamara Greenstone Alefaio, program coordinator for the Micronesia Conservation Trust.
mapping the deep 8 there’s plenty to talk about. Some of it is critical to the mission, such as making sure Dawn is familiar with the basic controls of the Limiting Factor in the unlikely event that Victor should become incapacitated. Dawn is well versed in submersibles, having done her PhD work using Alvin to study hydrothermal vents in mid-ocean ridges and Pisces V to study deep coral reefs in American Samoa. (Though they’re both called subs, a submersible differs from a submarine in that it needs to be launched from a support vessel, whereas a submarine can launch itself and return on its own.) As a result, Dawn’s able to settle in and approach a dive of this magnitude as she would any other, as a professional. With that mindset, she barely notices when the Limiting Factor floats past the 2,500-meter (8,202-foot) mark, making this now the deepest she has ever descended. Compared with her shallower dives, the major difference in Dawn’s preparation was a fasting regimen, since there’s no latrine aboard the Limiting Factor. The round trip to and from Challenger Deep often takes at least 10 hours, so Dawn had to reduce her food consumption over two days, with a final snack and sip of water a few hours before launch. Apart from that, there is little difference in the experience of the slow, dreamlike descent. If anything, it’s more comfortable than her past dives, given the length of the dives the Limiting Factor has been designed for. Even the pressure outside the sub, increasing to almost unimaginable levels, is imperceptible to the Dawn (left) and Victor at the controls of the Limiting Factor.
the dive 9 occupants of the Limiting Factor. At the full depth of Challenger Deep, the pressure is 16,000 pounds of force per square inch, equivalent to a school bus sitting on top of every cubic inch of water (or to the atmospheric pressure on the planet Venus!)—but Dawn and Victor, inside the sub’s meticulously engineered chamber, are protected from the ocean’s crushing force. Outside the hatch of the Limiting Factor, the crew have placed a handful of Styrofoam cups decorated with colorful doodles in a mesh bag. As the sub descends, the cups are fully exposed to the tremendous water pressure. When the sub returns to the surface, the cups are retrieved—warped and compressed to a fraction of their original size, but, amazingly, mostly intact. Not even a year later, in June 2023, the tragic loss of OceanGate’s Titan submersible near the wreck of the Titanic provided a sobering reminder of the perils of deep-sea exploration and the potentially catastrophic consequences of extreme underwater pressure. At the depth where the Titan’s hull suffered its deadly implosion, the pressure was an estimated 5,500 pounds of force per square inch, enough to crush a soda can to the size of a marble. Fortunately, unlike the Titan, the Limiting Factor has been constructed and certified to the highest industry standards. +4 HOURS, 17 MINUTES | −10451 METERS Apart from the expedition’s symbolic importance, as a first for a Black woman, Dawn’s dive has an immediate, tangible goal: pushing the science of seafloor data collection to new limits. One of the Styrofoam cups that rode all the way to Challenger Deep inside the hatch of the Limiting Factor, compared with a fresh Styrofoam cup.
mapping the deep 10 Above: An illustration depicting how a submersible like the Limiting Factor can obtain seafloor data using portable sidescan sonar. Below: How that data might be represented in two-dimensional form. Multibeam sonar systems, such as the one attached to the bottom of the Pressure Drop, are effective for capturing the bathymetry (depth data) of large swaths of the ocean floor. Portable sidescan sonar systems, on the other hand, are used to produce more detailed images of the seafloor. These sidescan devices are often deployed closer to the seafloor and can more accurately read differences in material and texture down below. They do this by measuring the intensity of the return signals, rather than merely the time it takes for the signals to bounce back, as multibeam sonar does. This capability makes sidescan particularly effective for purposes such as finding shipwrecks, determining the state of underwater infrastructure, or locating mineral deposits. But portable sidescan sonar has never been deployed deeper than 6,800 meters (22,309 feet); its circuitry generally doesn’t hold up well against the immense pressure of the deepest sea. Now, though, a Mauritius-based company called Deep Ocean Search has developed a sidescan sonar apparatus that is designed to withstand the pressure and work at full ocean depth. Victor and Dawn have arranged for this new device to be attached to the outer shell of the Limiting Factor. If it functions successfully in Challenger Deep, it will represent a game changer in the field of seafloor mapping. At about 10,450 meters (34,284 feet), still roughly half a kilometer above the floor of the trench, the moment of truth arrives. Cradling a laptop computer, Dawn powers up the sidescan for the first time. Much to her relief, the sonar’s signals are reading clearly.
the dive 11 +4 HOURS, 28 MINUTES | −10904 METERS There’s hardly time to celebrate the success of the sidescan’s operation before the bottom of Challenger Deep is upon Dawn and Victor. As the seafloor rises up to meet the Limiting Factor, they are greeted by a shiny, green, cylindrical object. “What is that?” asks Dawn, excitedly. “It looks like a light saber!” As they get closer to the object, they realize it’s no natural formation. “It’s a freaking bottle,” says Victor, with dismay in his voice. Indeed, it’s a beer bottle, with the label intact. Victor’s seen evidence of human life down here before—mainly gnarled cables, probably left behind by previous deployments of scientific vehicles—but it never fails to serve as a dispiriting reminder that human activity is affecting even the remotest spots on the globe. The sidescan sonar prototype developed by Deep Ocean Search that was attached to the bottom of the Limiting Factor. Dawn smiles and gives a thumbs-up over success in getting live data from the prototype sidescan.
mapping the deep 12 As Dawn said later, “This is further evidence that we as humanity must do better by the ocean and the habitats that we ourselves share and ultimately depend on. There is no Planet B!” But for Dawn, at least, the disappointment of stumbling upon the bottle is quickly replaced by a more positive emotion—elation. After all, she’s made it to the deepest point in the world! It was, she said, a lifelong dream come true, a journey she’d never imagined would be possible. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get to the moon,” Dawn reflected after her dive, “but that was my moon walk, that was my moon shot. I think for all of us who have been to Challenger Deep, that is our one, that’s the holy grail. And so I felt I understand now why astronauts are so poetic and they express themselves in a certain way that really gets to the heart of our spirituality and our existence, because they have seen Planet Earth in a way that we will never see it. And that’s the way I felt in Challenger Deep. I felt astonishment and wonder and excitement.” Within a few minutes, the Limiting Factor reaches its maximum depth for this expedition: 10,919 meters (35,823 feet). Dawn and Victor take note of some holothurians (sea cucumbers) nestled on the seabed. It’s something of an antidote to the bottle sighting; there’s a certain comfort in realizing that forms of life have been surviving even in these most inhospitable places since long before our species evolved, and they’ll likely continue to exist long after we’re gone. A green glass bottle at the bottom of Challenger Deep.
the dive 13 +4 HOURS, 43 MINUTES | −10890 METERS Challenger Deep contains three distinct “pools” that drop below that magic 10,900-meter (35,761-feet) mark. The absolute deepest points are in the Eastern Pool, which has been the destination for most of the Limiting Factor’s descents. On this dive, though, Victor and Dawn are targeting the relatively unexplored Western Pool. In fact, their planned sidescan survey route will take them through completely new territory; they will be the first people ever to set eyes on the ground they’re about to cover. Their track takes them along the floor of the Western Pool and then gradually climbs the “wall” of the trench. All the while, the sidescan pings away. Its continued operation in this environment represents a massive technological victory. But Dawn and Victor are making the most interesting observations with their own eyes. Now Dawn can see, firsthand, the results of geologic processes she’s made a career out of studying. Before her lie fields of angular, blocky boulders, left in the wake of tectonic plates that have been colliding over millions of years. The bathymetric chart plotting the course Dawn and Victor took through Challenger Deep.
mapping the deep 14 She christens one particularly impressive outcropping “Flintstones’ Quarry.” To explain its formation, Dawn later described how the seafloor is being “munched up” in this spot, right where “the Pacific plate is crunching into the Philippine plate and grinding up all these fantastically cool rocks.” +6 HOURS, 52 MINUTES → +9 HOURS, 53 MINUTES −10727 METERS → −554 METERS After nearly two and a half hours exploring Challenger Deep’s Western Pool, the time has come to begin the ascent back to the surface. For all the Limiting Factor’s technological wizardry, this process simply involves discarding several metal weights. (“They’ll decompose at this depth and become part of the seafloor,” Dawn points out, though, sadly, that glass bottle never will.) With the sub now appreciably less heavy, the return journey is about an hour shorter than the descent. Now is the time to decompress, both literally and figuratively. Victor’s smartphone comes in handy here, as he’s downloaded a couple of preselected movies to watch on the way up. Dawn’s pick is Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace. It might seem a curious choice, at least until she cites the memorable scene that takes place in an underwater vehicle. Then there’s still enough time left for Victor to run through some handpicked scenes from his favorite film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Before Dawn knows it, the water outside the viewports starts to take on a lighter hue. At last, after exactly 10 hours beneath the waves, the Limiting Factor bobs serenely to the surface. A field of boulders left in the wake of tectonic plates colliding over millions of years.
the dive 15 6:11 P.M. | LAUNCH +10 HOURS, 0 MINUTES | DEPTH: 0 METERS There’s still plenty of daylight when the Limiting Factor peeks above the water, though the sun has migrated most of the way across the watercolor sky. A man in a fluorescent yellow vest dives into the ocean from a Zodiac raft and swims over to manually attach a tow cable to the submersible so that it can be brought back aboard the Pressure Drop. His name is Shane Muhl but he’s affectionately known as Speedo. Speedo’s duty, which is not without risk, represents just one of many crucial roles that have enabled Caladan’s missions over the past half-decade. These range from the engineers and technicians responsible for the groundbreaking technology that makes these expeditions possible, to the cartographers and scientists who can contextualize the expeditions’ discoveries, to the crew that keeps the Pressure Drop running, including the onboard cooks. Once pulled from the Limiting Factor, exhausted but still running on adrenaline, Dawn is more than ready for a hot meal prepared by those cooks. She has to keep her game face on a little longer to indulge the media crew that’s there to document her achievement, but soon she’s able to go to the restroom (!), shower, and join Victor in the galley for a plate of spaghetti Bolognese (his favorite postdive meal). It’s past dinner hour for the rest of the ship, so the two explorers are able to share a quiet moment of reflection. Shane Muhl stands on the submersible waiting for the Pressure Drop to hoist the Limiting Factor aboard.
mapping the deep 16 For Victor, this may be the last time he’ll ever pilot the Limiting Factor to the bottom of Challenger Deep, which makes the moment especially poignant. From the start, he’s largely financed Caladan and its operations out of his own pocket, with the occasional infusion from “trench tourists” who are willing to pay a hefty fee to visit the deepest point on Earth. Now, though, he has found a buyer for the whole Hadal Exploration System—including the sub, the ship, and all the trimmings. Within a few months, video game magnate Gabe Newell and his organization Inkfish Expeditions will take over the operation, leaving Victor a bit nostalgic but eager for his next adventure. For Dawn, the work continues—the essential work of mapping the deep and of explaining to audiences all over the world why it’s so important to do so. Not just important, Dawn argues, but crucial to the future of our planet, about 70 percent of which lies under ocean waters. As Dawn climbed out of the sub that day in 2022 and stood on the deck of the Pressure Drop, with TV cameras capturing her every move, scientists and nonscientists alike were celebrating her achievement. She even received a call from senior Dawn (left) and Victor return triumphantly from the deepest point in the world.
the dive 17 officials at the White House. People across the globe suddenly wanted to know more about Dawn Wright. Who was this Deepsea Dawn? What was her story? Why had she dedicated her distinguished career to ocean mapping? And how did she get to be the first (and so far, only) Black scientist to visit the deepest place on Earth?
mapping the deep 18
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