AI-generated summary
Despite covering over 70% of Earth’s surface and hosting vital ecosystems, the oceans remain largely unexplored due to the challenging properties of water—such as density, pressure, and poor visibility—that complicate investigation. Unlike space telescopes that reach billions of light-years, ocean exploration demands advanced technology to withstand extreme depths and pressures. The importance of exploring oceans extends beyond curiosity; it is crucial for environmental protection, climate modeling, and discovering untapped resources like deuterium for fusion energy and marine-derived medicines. Only a small fraction of the seabed is known, yet it holds millions of undiscovered species essential for future drug development, with six out of ten current medicines originating from nature.
Historically, ocean exploration has evolved from early dives with the bathysphere in the 1920s to the bathyscaphe Trieste’s record descent to nearly 11,000 meters in 1960. Despite technological advances, challenges persist, including high costs, limited visibility, and extreme pressure. Robotic probes aid exploration but with limited range and high expenses. Nonetheless, the benefits of ocean research—such as discovery of new drugs, environmental insights, and technological innovations—justify these efforts. Ocean exploration also drives conservation by revealing the impact of pollution and climate change on marine life, highlighting the need to protect these ecosystems vital to Earth’s health and humanity’s future.
Under the surface of the sea we can find the future of medicines, clean fuels and the planet's climate prediction.
Despite covering more than 70% of the planet’s surface and being the origin and home of much of the ecosystems on which we depend, the oceans are largely unknown. Even with enormous potential to develop medicines, learn about the environment, or locate items of interest for clean technologies, the properties of water make it difficult to explore.
The density of the fluid, the pressure at a certain depth, the dissolved salts that impede visibility or the behavior of light make the exploration of the ocean a titanic task. Telescopes allow us to travel 14,400 million light-years (Icarus, the most distant star ever seen), but they cannot be used for diving. What secrets does the ocean hide?
Why is it important to explore the ocean?
Jacques Cousteau, one of the great ocean explorers of the last century, influenced entire generations of people who, captivated by the wonders that were hidden beneath the surface, became more environmentally conscious. Ocean exploration plays a decisive role in caring for the environment, and it is partially responsible for the fact that between 3.6% and 5.7% of its surface is already protected. Perhaps it is still not enough, but it is decisive.
Understanding the oceans also helps design climate models of the planet. The more you know about ocean relief, ocean currents, and chemical composition, the easier it is to build models that yield valid results about the future. To do this, the waters must be monitored and often submerged to great depths. Something complex and that requires advanced technology.
One of the ocean’s biggest claims points to the resources that are still hidden in its depths. Heavy water (deuterium) is an ideal, clean fuel for fusion reactors, and in the world’s oceans there is a virtually unlimited amount capable of powering humanity for millennia, if not longer.
Medicines are another great ocean resource to value. It is estimated that six out of ten medicines today come from nature. Considering that only 2% of the seabed is known and that there are about two million species to be discovered in the ocean (all together they add up to about 6 gigatons of carbon), their conservation and discovery is critical.
A Brief History of Ocean Exploration
The first ocean dives date back to the 1920s, when Charles William Beebe discovered “the delights of hanging and swinging”—according to The Universe Below (1998)—using a dive capsule in the Galapagos Islands. Together with Otis Barton they designed the first bathysphere, with which in 1930 they descended to 183 meters and in 1934 to 900 meters.
Both Beebe and Barton were soon eclipsed by Auguste and Jacques Piccard, father and son, who built the bathyscaphe Trieste. It no longer hung from an umbilical cable and elevator, but could maneuver and had its own air. Risking their lives, in 1954 they managed
They had to build another bathyscaphe, this one with the help of the U.S. Navy, to submerge it in January 1960 to 10,918 meters. It took almost four hours to descend and every square centimeter of the bathyscaphe (your thumbnail) withstood 1196 kg of pressure. No one has ever gone down to such a depth again, partly because it is absurd to be able to descend cameras.
The enormous difficulty of exploring the ocean
Pressure has been by far the big problem with humans’ descent into the depths. But even with advanced, high-tech robots, conditions are not optimal. Visibility, for example, means having a margin of a few metres in good weather. Robot dives are often made and the range is a few centimeters.
Bill Bryson, in his chapter on the depths of A Brief History of Almost Everything (2003), reflects that “it is more or less as if our direct experience of the surface world is based on the work of several individuals exploring with farm tractors after dark.” By comparison, the universe above the atmosphere is empty and practicable.
Of course, descending even with robotic probes is costly both for the machine itself and for the surface support system required to lower the robot. Often, the presence of several medium-sized ships is necessary to perform extremely simple tests that shed little light. That said, the cost of ocean exploration is worth it, as is the case with space exploration.
The return of ocean exploration
The mere knowledge gained from decades of exploration is already enough return to justify the investment of exploring the oceans. The discovery of new drugs adds to the value obtained from research, and for years different anti-tumour drugs have been researched. As early as 2007 , there were oncology trials studying different compounds in the ocean.
However, this work is slow. Due to the enormous costs of exploration and subsequent research , the number of drugs that come from the ocean is still remarkably low, almost negligible over the total. In part it is due to the fact that very few pharmaceutical companies are allocating resources to this search, and those that have been doing so for three decades carry out superficial explorations.
Spanish companies such as PharmaMar, which were born with the aim of searching for marine organisms, have catalogued tens of thousands of organisms whose habitat is 100 metres above the surface. With the average depth of the world’s oceans exceeding 4 kilometers, there is still a world of possibilities ready to explore.
While it’s not known for sure, it’s pretty sure that the next big group of antibiotics will come from the ocean. Penicillin was discovered by accident at the same time that Charles William Beebe took down his proto-bathysphere to see the wonders next to the Galapagos. Since then, a dozen new types have been discovered, but we could use others.
Nor can we ignore the enormous benefit for society as a whole of the way in which ocean exploration serves as a driving force for all kinds of industries. Its is full of inventions, such as depth sonar, which have led to indispensable medical devices, such as ultrasound scanning.
Ocean conservation through technology
Knowing what is under the oceans is essential to be aware of what needs to be taken care of. It is the exploration of the oceans that has shed light on how coral has already lost 50% of its capacity to support other species, a consequence of planetary neglect and pollution.
Ocean exploration technology is a critical tool for ocean preservation. Not only does it provide information about the state of the Earth system, but it also gives us tools to change the course of civilization and make it coincide with that of the rest of the planet.
