Five oceans cover approximately 70 percent of the earth. Yet we know little about what lies beneath them. By the early 2020s, less than twenty-five percent of the ocean's floor has been charted, most close to shorelines, and over three quarters of the ocean lies in in what is called the Deep Sea, depths below a thousand meters. Now, the race is on to completely map the ocean's floor by 2030—an epic project involving scientists, investors, militaries, and private explorers who are cooperating and competing to get an accurate reading of this vast terrain and understand its contours and environment. Laura Trethewey documents this race to the bottom, following global efforts around the world, from crowdsourcing to advances in technology, recent scientific discoveries to tales of dangerous dives in untested and costly submersibles.
A gripping and all-too-timely account of what in more ways than one is turning out to be a very costly and questionably necessary race to the bottom ... Absorbing ... The author’s words should be required reading.
Transfixing and eye-opening ... The shape of the book, and Trethewey’s character-focused approach, results in a powerful, almost thrilling reading experience despite the complexity of its scientific material ... Something of a page-turner, a book that is open to the excitement of exploration, but also keenly aware of the potential dark future on the horizon. After having read of the wonders of the ocean floor, and the lengths to which explorers have gone to discover them, the chapter on the logistics and legalities of undersea mining is heartbreaking, with images of destroyed ecosystems, only newly discovered, which will haunt your dreams.
An enlightening and often surprising read ... Above all, the author illustrates that while gaining information is a solid goal in and of itself, it’s what humans choose to do with that information that matters most. It’s an intelligent distinction to make, delivered with a refreshing degree of levelheaded curiosity rather than anger or fear.
