I'm an underwater explorer, more specifically a cave diver.
Ja sam podvodni istraživač, točnije špiljski ronioc.
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.
Kao dijete željela sam biti astronaut, no odrastajući u Kanadi kao mlada djevojka, to mi nije bilo dostupno. No, ispada da znamo više o svemiru nego o podvodnim tokovima koji protječu našim planetom, upravo životna snaga Majke Zemlje. Tako da sam odlučila napraviti nešto još izvanrednije. Umjesto da istražujem svemir, htjela sam istraživati čuda unutrašnjeg prostora.
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.
Većina ljudi će vam reći da je špiljsko ronjenje jedan od najopasnijih pothvata. Mislim, zamislite se ovdje u ovoj prostoriji, da ste odjednom uronjeni u crnilo, s jedinim zadatkom da pronađete izlaz, ponekad plivajući kroz ovaj ogromni prostor, a ponekad pužući iza sjedala, prateći tanke smjernice, čekajući na sustav za održavanje života za sljedeći udah. To je moje radno mjesto.
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.
No želim vas naučiti danas da naš svijet nije jedna velika čvrsta stijena. Više je kao spužva. Mogu plivati kroz mnoštvo pora u zemaljskoj spužvi, a tamo gdje ne mogu, drugi oblici života i drugi materijali mogu bez mene. Moj glas je onaj koji će vas naučiti o unutrašnjosti Majke Zemlje.
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.
Nije mi bio dostupan vodič kad sam odlučila biti prva osoba koja će zaroniti u ledenjake Antarktika. 2000. godine, ovo je bio najveći pokretni objekt na planetu. Odvalio se od Rossovog ledenog šelfa, i mi smo otišli tamo da bi istražili ekologiju ledenog ruba i tražili oblike života ispod leda.
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.
Koristimo tehnologiju koja se zove ponovno disanje. Jako je slično istoj tehnologiji koja se koristi pri svemirskim šetnjama. Ova tehnologija nam omogućava da odemo dublje nego što smo mogli zamisliti prije 10 godina. Koristimo egzotične plinove, i uzvodimo misije i do 20 sati pod vodom.
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?
Ja radim s biolozima. Ispada da su špilje skladišta za nevjerojatne oblike života, vrste za koje nismo znali da postoje. Mnogi od ovih oblika života žive na neobične načine. Nemaju pigment niti oči u mnogim slučajevima, i ove životinje ekstremno dugo žive. Zapravo, životinje koje plivaju u ovim špiljama danas su identične fosilima koji prethode izumiranje dinosaura. Zamislite, to su kao mali plivajući dinosauri. Što nas mogu naučiti o evoluciji i opstanku? Kada pogledamo životinju kao ova remipidia što pliva u staklenci, ima ogromne otrovne zube. Može zapravo napasti nešto 40 puta svoje veličine i ubiti ga. Kad bi bila veličine mačke, bila bi najopasnija stvar na planetu. Ove životinje žive u izvanredno lijepim mjestima, u nekim slučajevima, špilje kao ova, koja je vrlo mlada, životinje su drevne. Kako su došle ovdje?
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.
Također, radim s fizičarima, koji su često zainteresirani za globalne klimatske promjene. Uzmu kamenje iz špilja, presjeku ih i gledaju slojeve unutar kamena, slično kao godovi kod drveta, i mogu izbrojati unazad u povijest i naučiti o klimi na našem planetu kroz različita doba. Ovo crveno što vidite na ovoj fotografiji je zapravo prašina iz Sahare. Pokupio ju je vjetar koji puše preko Atlantskog oceana. Putem kiše je pala u ovom slučaju na otok Abaco na Bahamima. Natapa se kroz tlo i taloži u stijenju unutar ovih špilja. I kad pogledamo slojeve u ovom kamenju, možemo pronaći doba kada je klima na zemlji bila veoma, veoma suha, i možemo otići natrag mnogo stotina i tisuća godina.
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.
Paleoklimatolozi su, također, zainteresirani gdje je razina mora bila u drukčije doba na zemlji. Ovdje na Bermudi, moj tim i ja se ukrcavamo na najdublje ronjenje ikad izvedeno u regiji, i tražimo mjesta gdje je morska razina bila u odnosu na obalu, mnogo stotina stopa ispod sadašnje razine.
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, and they tell us a lot about some of the earliest inhabitants of these regions.
Također, imam priliku raditi sa paleontolozima i arheolozima. U mjestima kao što su Meksiko, Bahami čak i Kuba, proučavamo kulturnu ostavštinu i ljudske ostatke u špiljama, koji nam govore mnogo o nekima od najranijih stanovnicima ovih područja.
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,
No, meni najdraži projekt od svih je bio prije preko 15 godina, kad sam bila dio tima koji je napravio prvu točnu, trodimenzionalnu mapu podzemne površine. Ovaj uređaj koji vozim kroz špilju je zapravo stvarao trodimenzionalni model dok sam upravljala. Također, koristimo niskofrekventni radio koji odašilje natrag na površinu naš precizan položaj unutar špilje. Tako da sam plivala ispod kuća, tvrtki i kuglana i golf terena, čak i ispod Sonnyjevog BBQ restorana.
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.
Prilično izvanredno, i ono što sam naučila je da sve što radimo na površini zemlje će nam se vratiti u obliku pića. Naš vodeni planet nisu samo rijeke, jezera i oceani, nego i prostrana mreža podzemnih voda koja nas sve spaja. To je zajednički resurs iz kojeg svi pijemo. Kad budemo razumjeli naše ljudske veze s podzemnim vodama i svim izvorima vode na ovom planetu, onda ćemo raditi na problemu koji je vjerojatno najvažniji problem ovog stoljeća.
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.
Nikad nisam imala priliku postati astronaut kao što sam oduvijek željela, no ovaj uređaj za mapiranje, koji je dizajnirao Dr. Bill Stone, će postati. Zapravo se preoblikovao. Sada je samoplivajući autonomni robot, umjetno inteligentan, i njegov konačni cilj je da ode na Jupiterov mjesec Europu i istraži oceane ispod zaleđene površine tog tijela.
And that's pretty amazing.
I to je prilično nevjerojatno.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)