Ja sam podvodni istraživač preciznije pećinski ronilac.
I'm an underwater explorer, more specifically a cave diver.
Želela sam da budem astronaut kada sam bila dete, ali u Kanadi kao mladoj devojci, to nije bilo dostupno za mene. Ali izgleda da znamo mnogo više o svemiru nego o podzemnim vodenim putevima koji teku unutar naše planete, prava životna sila Majke Zemlje. Tako sam odlučila da uradim nešto još izvanrednije. Umesto istraživanja sveta van zemljine atmosfere, želela sam da istražim lepote sveta ispod površine. Sad, većina ljudi će reći da je pećinsko ronjenje varovatno jedan od najopasnijih poduhvata. Mislim, zamislite sebe ovde u ovoj sobi, ako biste iznenada zaronili u tamu, sa jedinim zadatkom da nađete izlaz, ponekad plivajući kroz prostrane površine, a nekad puzeći ispod sedišta, prateći veoma precizna uputstva, samo čekajući spasioce da vam obezbede sledeći udisaj. Eto, to je moje radno mesto.
I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a little kid, but growing up in Canada as a young girl, that wasn't really available to me. But as it turns out, we know a lot more about space than we do about the underground waterways coursing through our planet, the very lifeblood of Mother Earth. So I decided to do something that was even more remarkable. Instead of exploring outer space, I wanted to explore the wonders of inner space. Now, a lot of people will tell you that cave diving is perhaps one of the most dangerous endeavors. I mean, imagine yourself here in this room, if you were suddenly plunged into blackness, with your only job to find the exit, sometimes swimming through these large spaces, and at other times crawling beneath the seats, following a thin guideline, just waiting for the life support to provide your very next breath. Well, that's my workplace.
Ali ono što hoću da vas naučim danas je da naš svet nije jedna čvrsta stena. Mnogo više podseća na sunđer. Ja mogu da plivam kroz mnogobrojne pore u sunđeru naše zemlje, ali tamo gde ja ne mogu, drugi oblici života i druge supstance mogu da putuju bez mene. I moj glas je onaj koji će da vas uči o unutrašnjosti Majke Zemlje.
But what I want to teach you today is that our world is not one big solid rock. It's a whole lot more like a sponge. I can swim through a lot of the pores in our earth's sponge, but where I can't, other life-forms and other materials can make that journey without me. And my voice is the one that's going to teach you about the inside of Mother Earth.
Nije bilo meni dostupnog priručnika kada sam odlučila da budem prvi ronilac unutar Antartičkih ledenih bregova. U 2000, to je bio najveći pokretni objekat na planeti. odlomio se od Ross Ice Lednika, i mi smo se spustili tamo da istražimo ekologiju ledenog brega i nadjemo oblike života ispod leda.
There was no guidebook available to me when I decided to be the first person to cave dive inside Antarctic icebergs. In 2000, this was the largest moving object on the planet. It calved off the Ross Ice Shelf, and we went down there to explore ice edge ecology and search for life-forms beneath the ice.
Tehnologija koju koristimo se zove rebreathers. To je veoma slična tehnologija onoj koja se koristi za svemirske šetnje. Ova tehnologija nam omogućava da idemo dublje nego što smo čak mogli i zamisliti pre deset godina. Mi koristimo egzotične gasove, i možemo da ostanemo čak i do 20 sati pod vodom.
We use a technology called rebreathers. It's an awful lot like the same technology that is used for space walks. This technology enables us to go deeper than we could've imagined even 10 years ago. We use exotic gases, and we can make missions even up to 20 hours long underwater.
Ja radim sa biolozima. Ispostavilo se da su pećine skladišta neverovatnih oblika života, vrsta koje nismo zanli da su postojale. Mnogi od ovih oblika života žive na neuobičajen način. Nemaju pigment ni oči u većini slučajeva, i ove životinje takođe ekstremno dugo žive. Zapravo životinje koje plivaju u tim pećinama danas su identične onim u datoteci nađenih fosila iz vremena pre istrebljenja dinosaurusa. Tako zamislite to: one su kao mali plivajući dinosaurusi. Šta nas oni uče o evoluciji i opstanku? Kada gledamo životinju kao što je remipedia kako pliva u tegli, on ima ogromne kljove pune otrova. On može napasti biće 40 puta veće od njega i ubiti ga. Kada bi bio veličine mačke, on bi bio najopasnije biće na našoj planeti. A ove životinje žive na neverovatno lepim mestima i u nekim slučajevima, takve pećine su veoma mlade, ipak životinje su prastare. Kako li su dospele tamo?
I work with biologists. It turns out that caves are repositories of amazing life-forms, species that we never knew existed before. Many of these life-forms live in unusual ways. They have no pigment and no eyes in many cases, and these animals are also extremely long-lived. In fact, animals swimming in these caves today are identical in the fossil record that predates the extinction of the dinosaurs. So imagine that: these are like little swimming dinosaurs. What can they teach us about evolution and survival? When we look at an animal like this remipede swimming in the jar, he has giant fangs with venom. He can actually attack something 40 times his size and kill it. If he were the size of a cat, he'd be the most dangerous thing on our planet. And these animals live in remarkably beautiful places, and in some cases, caves like this, that are very young, yet the animals are ancient. How did they get there?
Takođe radim sa fizičarima, i oni su često zainteresovani za globalne klimatske promene. Oni uzimaju stene iz pećina, oni ih iseku i gledaju slojeve u steni, slično kao kodovi u drvetu, i mogu da broje unazad u istoriju i uče o klimi na našoj planeti u različitim razdobljima. To crveno sto vidite na ovoj fotografiji je zapravo prašina iz pustinje Sahara. Poneo ju je vetar, i nanijeo preko Atlantskog Okeana. Pala je sa kišom u ovom slučaju na ostrvo Abaco u Bahamima. Prodire u zemljište i taloži se u stenama unutar ovih pećina. I onda kada gledamo slojeve tih pećina, možemo pronaći vreme kada je klima bila veoma, veoma suha na zemlji, i možemo se vratiti mnogo stotina hiljada godina unazad.
I also work with physicists, and they're interested oftentimes in global climate change. They can take rocks within the caves, and they can slice them and look at the layers within with rocks, much like the rings of a tree, and they can count back in history and learn about the climate on our planet at very different times. The red that you see in this photograph is actually dust from the Sahara Desert. So it's been picked up by wind, blown across the Atlantic Ocean. It's rained down in this case on the island of Abaco in the Bahamas. It soaks in through the ground and deposits itself in the rocks within these caves. And when we look back in the layers of these rocks, we can find times when the climate was very, very dry on earth, and we can go back many hundreds of thousands of years.
Paleoklimatolozi su takodje zainteresovani gde su se nivoi mora nalazili u drugim periodima na zemlji. Ovde u Bermudi, moj tim i ja smo kročili na najdublje ronilačke poduhvate ikad organizovane u regionu, i tražili smo mesta gde je nivo mora bio uz obalu mnogo stotina stopa ispod trenutnog nivoa.
Paleoclimatologists are also interested in where the sea level stands were at other times on earth. Here in Bermuda, my team and I embarked on the deepest manned dives ever conducted in the region, and we were looking for places where the sea level used to lap up against the shoreline, many hundreds of feet below current levels.
Takođe radim sa paleontolozima i arheolozima. U mestima kao što je Meksiko, Bahami, i čak na Kubi, mi tražimo ostatke kulturne baštine i ljudske ostatke u pećinama,
I also get to work with paleontologists and archaeologists. In places like Mexico, in the Bahamas, and even in Cuba, we're looking at cultural remains and also human remains in caves,
i oni nam govore puno o nekim od najranijih stanovnika ovih oblasti.
and they tell us a lot about some of the earliest inhabitants of these regions.
Ali moj omiljeni projekat je bio pre više od 15 godina, kada sam bila deo tima koji je sačinio prvu preciznu, trodimenzionalnu mapu podzemne površine. Uređaj koji sam vozila kroz pećinu je zapravo kreirao trodimenzionalni model dok smo vozili. Takođe smo koristili nisko talasni radio da prenesemo na površinu našu tačnu poziciju unutar pećine. Tako sam ja plivala ispod kuća, radnji i kuglana i terena za golf, i čak ispod Sonijevog BBQ restorana,
But my very favorite project of all was over 15 years ago, when I was a part of the team that made the very first accurate, three-dimensional map of a subterranean surface. This device that I'm driving through the cave was actually creating a three-dimensional model as we drove it. We also used ultra low frequency radio to broadcast back to the surface our exact position within the cave. So I swam under houses and businesses and bowling alleys and golf courses, and even under a Sonny's BBQ Restaurant,
Prilično neverovatno, i to me je naučilo da sve što radimo na površini zemlje vratiće nam se u vodi. Našu vodenu planetu ne čine samo reke, jezera i okeani, nego i njena podvodna mreža koja nas spaja sve zajedno. To je zajednički resurs iz kojeg svi pijemo vodu. I kada budemo mogli razumeti našu povezanost sa podzemnim vodama i sa svim našim vodenim resursima na ovoj planeti, onda ćemo raditi na problemu koji je verovatno najvažniji u ovom veku.
Pretty remarkable, and what that taught me was that everything we do on the surface of our earth will be returned to us to drink. Our water planet is not just rivers, lakes and oceans, but it's this vast network of groundwater that knits us all together. It's a shared resource from which we all drink. And when we can understand our human connections with our groundwater and all of our water resources on this planet, then we'll be working on the problem that's probably the most important issue of this century.
I tako ja nikada nisam postala astronaut kao što sam želela, ali ovaj uređaj za kreiranje mapa koji je dizajnirao Dr. Bill Stone će biti. Već je zapravo transformisan. To je samostalno plivajući nezavisan robot veštački inteligentan, i njegov krajnji cilj je da ode na Jupiterov mesec Europa i istraži okeane ispod zamrznute površine nebeskog tela.
So I never got to be that astronaut that I always wanted to be, but this mapping device, designed by Dr. Bill Stone, will be. It's actually morphed. It's now a self-swimming autonomous robot, artificially intelligent, and its ultimate goal is to go to Jupiter's moon Europa and explore oceans beneath the frozen surface of that body.
I to je neverovatno.
And that's pretty amazing.
(Aplauz)
(Applause)