T&T prepares for first deep-sea expedition

Seigo­nie Mo­hammed

Cli­mate Change Ed­i­tor

Some­where in the dark­ness off Trinidad and To­ba­go’s coast, ghost sharks drift through cold wa­ters, strange oc­to­pus­es cling to an­cient sponges and crea­tures with nick­names like the “head­less chick­en mon­ster” roam a world few hu­mans have ever seen.

Ma­rine sci­en­tists be­lieve there may be species liv­ing there that have nev­er been doc­u­ment­ed. Yet de­spite be­ing an is­land na­tion, T&T knows re­mark­ably lit­tle about the vast ecosys­tem be­neath its own wa­ters. How­ev­er, that is about to change.

For the first time, a T&T-led sci­en­tif­ic mis­sion will em­bark on a ground­break­ing ex­pe­di­tion in­to the deep wa­ters, plac­ing the na­tion at the fore­front of glob­al ocean dis­cov­ery aboard the state-of-the-art Re­search Ves­sel Falkor (too).

The mis­sion comes with a star­tling re­al­i­ty: more than 93 per cent of T&T’s ma­rine ter­ri­to­ry lies be­yond recre­ation­al div­ing depths, yet less than one per cent has ever been sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly ex­plored.

For cli­mate sci­en­tists and ma­rine re­searchers, that un­ex­plored fron­tier mat­ters.

As Caribbean na­tions con­front ris­ing sea tem­per­a­tures, coral bleach­ing, stronger storms and grow­ing pres­sure on ma­rine re­sources, un­der­stand­ing the deep ocean is be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant.

Sci­en­tists say the ecosys­tems, hid­den thou­sands of me­tres be­low the sur­face, play a crit­i­cal role in ocean health, bio­di­ver­si­ty and the nat­ur­al process­es that reg­u­late the Earth’s cli­mate.

Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Dr Kennedy Swarats­ingh be­lieves the ex­pe­di­tion marks a turn­ing point.

“I do not think of this his­toric ven­ture as a ship ar­riv­ing; it is Trinidad and To­ba­go step­ping on­to the glob­al stage of ex­plo­ration,” he said.

For decades, much of the sci­en­tif­ic re­search con­duct­ed in Caribbean wa­ters has been led by in­sti­tu­tions from out­side the re­gion. This ex­pe­di­tion flips that nar­ra­tive.

Lead­ing the mis­sion is T&T ma­rine bi­ol­o­gist Dr Di­va Amon, whose pi­o­neer­ing work in deep-sea sci­ence has earned her in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion. Now, she re­turns to help un­lock the mys­ter­ies of her own coun­try’s ocean depths.

“This ex­pe­di­tion is an un­prece­dent­ed op­por­tu­ni­ty to un­cov­er the mys­ter­ies of our ocean, while cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for na­tion­al en­gage­ment in sci­ence, ed­u­ca­tion and en­vi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship,” Dr Amon said.

Re­searchers hope to pro­duce high-res­o­lu­tion maps of the seafloor, doc­u­ment ma­rine bio­di­ver­si­ty and in­ves­ti­gate ecosys­tems that have nev­er be­fore been stud­ied.

The find­ings could help shape fu­ture con­ser­va­tion ef­forts and deep­en un­der­stand­ing of how deep-sea en­vi­ron­ments re­spond to a chang­ing cli­mate.

But the ex­pe­di­tion is about more than sci­ence.

Eleven stu­dents, in­clud­ing eight from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, will join the voy­age, gain­ing hands-on ex­pe­ri­ence aboard one of the world’s most ad­vanced float­ing lab­o­ra­to­ries.

Every dive and dis­cov­ery will al­so be livestreamed, al­low­ing cit­i­zens to wit­ness ex­plo­ration in re­al time.

For Dr Amon, in­spir­ing the next gen­er­a­tion may prove just as im­por­tant as any sci­en­tif­ic break­through.

“For young peo­ple, it’s a spark, a chance to dream big, to imag­ine them­selves as sci­en­tists, ex­plor­ers, and guardians of the ocean,” she said.

For one month, the eyes of the glob­al sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty will turn to­wards T&T. Be­neath the waves lies the coun­try’s largest ecosys­tem, a hid­den world that has shaped life above it for mil­len­nia.