The mysterious world of underwater caves | Jill Heinerth

Translator: Carme Paz Reviewer: Xusto Rodriguez

I'm an underwater explorer,

Son exploradora submarina,

máis ben, unha mergulladora de cavernas.

more specifically a cave diver.

Eu quería ser astronauta cando era unha nena

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.

pero en Canadá, daquela, non era posible.

Mais resulta que sabemos moito máis sobre o espazo

But as it turns out, we know a lot more about space

than we do about the underground waterways coursing through our planet,

que sobre os cursos subterráneos de auga que percorren o noso planeta,

the very lifeblood of Mother Earth.

a alma da Nai Terra.

So I decided to do something that was even more remarkable.

Por iso, decidín facer algo aínda máis importante.

En lugar de explorar o espazo exterior,

Instead of exploring outer space,

I wanted to explore the wonders of inner space.

quería explorar as marabillas do espazo interior.

Now, a lot of people will tell you

Moita xente diravos

that cave diving is perhaps one of the most dangerous endeavors.

que o mergullo en covas é talvez unha das tarefas máis perigosas.

I mean, imagine yourself here in this room,

É dicir, imaxinade que aquí, nesta sala,

if you were suddenly plunged into blackness,

de súpeto, quedaramos sumidos na escuridade,

coa única misión de atopar a saída,

with your only job to find the exit,

sometimes swimming through these large spaces,

ás veces, nadando en grandes espazos,

and at other times crawling beneath the seats,

noutros momentos, arrastrándonos baixo os asentos,

following a thin guideline,

seguindo unha estreita corda guía,

just waiting for the life support to provide your very next breath.

agardando o soporte vital para a seguinte respiración.

Well, that's my workplace.

Ben, ese é o meu lugar de traballo.

But what I want to teach you today

Pero o que quero amosar hoxe

is that our world is not one big solid rock.

é que o noso mundo non é unha gran rocha sólida.

It's a whole lot more like a sponge.

Parécese moito máis a unha esponxa.

I can swim through a lot of the pores in our earth's sponge,

Eu podo nadar por moitos dos poros da nosa esponxa terrestre,

but where I can't,

mais onde eu non podo,

other life-forms and other materials can make that journey without me.

outras formas de vida e materiais poden facer esa viaxe sen min.

And my voice is the one that's going to teach you

E a miña voz é a que vos vai mostrar

o interior da Nai Terra.

about the inside of Mother Earth.

There was no guidebook available to me

Eu non tiven ningunha guía

when I decided to be the first person to cave dive inside Antarctic icebergs.

cando decidín ser a primeira persoa en bucear dentro dos icebergs antárticos.

In 2000, this was the largest moving object on the planet.

No 2000, este foi o obxecto máis grande en movemento no planeta.

It calved off the Ross Ice Shelf,

Desprendeuse da Barreira de Xeo de Ross

and we went down there to explore ice edge ecology

e nós fomos alí para explorar a ecoloxía do xeo

e buscar formas de vida baixo el.

and search for life-forms beneath the ice.

We use a technology called rebreathers.

Usamos unha tecnoloxía chamada rebreathers.

It's an awful lot like the same technology that is used for space walks.

É moi parecida á tecnoloxía usada nas camiñadas espaciais.

This technology enables us to go deeper

Esta tecnoloxía permítenos ir máis ao fondo

than we could've imagined even 10 years ago.

do que imaxinabamos mesmo hai 10 anos.

We use exotic gases,

Usamos gases exóticos

and we can make missions even up to 20 hours long underwater.

e facemos misións baixo a auga de máis de 20 horas.

I work with biologists.

Traballo con biólogos.

It turns out that caves are repositories of amazing life-forms,

Resulta que as covas son almacéns de incribles formas de vida,

species that we never knew existed before.

de especies descoñecidas.

Many of these life-forms live in unusual ways.

Moitas destas formas de vida viven de xeitos estraños.

Non teñen pigmentos, ás veces nin ollos,

They have no pigment and no eyes in many cases,

e estes animais tamén son moi lonxevos.

and these animals are also extremely long-lived.

In fact, animals swimming in these caves today

De feito, os animais que hoxe nadan nesas covas

are identical in the fossil record

son idénticos aos do rexistro fósil

that predates the extinction of the dinosaurs.

anterior á extinción dos dinosauros.

So imagine that: these are like little swimming dinosaurs.

Así que imaxinade que son como pequenos dinosauros que nadan.

What can they teach us about evolution and survival?

Que poden ensinarnos sobre evolución e supervivencia?

Cando observamos un remípede como este que nada no frasco,

When we look at an animal like this remipede swimming in the jar,

vemos que ten cabeiros xigantes con veleno.

he has giant fangs with venom.

He can actually attack something 40 times his size and kill it.

Pode atacar algo 40 veces máis grande ca el e matalo.

Se tivese o tamaño dun gato,

If he were the size of a cat,

sería o ser máis perigoso do planeta.

he'd be the most dangerous thing on our planet.

And these animals live in remarkably beautiful places,

E estes animais viven en lugares moi fermosos

e nalgúns casos, en covas coma esta, que son moi novas

and in some cases, caves like this, that are very young,

yet the animals are ancient.

aínda que os animais son antigos.

How did they get there?

Como chegaron aí?

I also work with physicists,

Tamén traballo con físicos,

e moitas veces interésanse polo cambio climático global.

and they're interested oftentimes in global climate change.

They can take rocks within the caves,

Poden coller as rochas dentro das covas,

and they can slice them and look at the layers within with rocks,

poden cortalas en rodas e mirar as capas interiores,

much like the rings of a tree,

que son como aneis dunha árbore,

e poden recuar na historia

and they can count back in history

e aprender sobre o clima do planeta en tempos moi afastados.

and learn about the climate on our planet at very different times.

The red that you see in this photograph

O vermello que vedes nesta foto

is actually dust from the Sahara Desert.

En realidade, é po do deserto do Sáhara.

So it's been picked up by wind, blown across the Atlantic Ocean.

O vento recolleuno e empurrouno a través do Atlántico.

It's rained down in this case on the island of Abaco in the Bahamas.

A choiva depositouno, neste caso, na illa de Abaco nas Bahamas.

A terra absorbeuno

It soaks in through the ground

and deposits itself in the rocks within these caves.

e pousouno nas rochas dentro destas covas.

And when we look back in the layers of these rocks, we can find times

E ao mirar as capas destas rochas podemos atopar os tempos

when the climate was very, very dry on earth,

en que o clima era moi moi seco na Terra

and we can go back many hundreds of thousands of years.

e podemos recuar centos de miles de anos.

Aos paleoclimatólogos tamén lles interesa

Paleoclimatologists are also interested

in where the sea level stands were at other times on earth.

coñecer onde estaba o nivel do mar noutros tempos da Terra.

Here in Bermuda, my team and I embarked

Aquí, nas Bermudas, o meu equipo e eu embarcamos

on the deepest manned dives ever conducted in the region,

nas inmersións tripuladas máis profundas na historia da rexión

and we were looking for places

e buscamos lugares

en que o nivel do mar acostumaba tocar a costa,

where the sea level used to lap up against the shoreline,

many hundreds of feet below current levels.

moitos centos de metros por baixo dos niveis actuais.

I also get to work with paleontologists and archaeologists.

Tamén traballo con paleontólogos e arqueólogos.

En lugares como México, nas Bahamas e mesmo en Cuba,

In places like Mexico, in the Bahamas, and even in Cuba,

we're looking at cultural remains and also human remains in caves,

analizamos restos culturais e tamén restos humanos nas covas,

and they tell us a lot

e dinnos moito

about some of the earliest inhabitants of these regions.

sobre algúns dos primeiros habitantes destas rexións.

Pero o meu proxecto preferido foi hai máis de 15 anos,

But my very favorite project of all was over 15 years ago,

cando fun parte do equipo que fixo o primeiro

when I was a part of the team that made the very first

accurate, three-dimensional map of a subterranean surface.

mapa tridimensional preciso dunha superficie subterránea.

Este dispositivo que guío a través da cova

This device that I'm driving through the cave

was actually creating a three-dimensional model as we drove it.

en realidade ía creando un modelo tridimensional mentres conduciamos.

Tamén usamos radio de frecuencia ultrabaixa

We also used ultra low frequency radio

to broadcast back to the surface our exact position within the cave.

para retransmitirlle á superficie a nosa posición exacta na cova.

Así que nadei baixo vivendas, negocios, casas de birlos e campos de golf

So I swam under houses and businesses and bowling alleys and golf courses,

e mesmo por baixo dun BBQ Restaurant.

and even under a Sonny's BBQ Restaurant,

Pretty remarkable, and what that taught me

Algo extraordinario, e o que isto me ensinou

was that everything we do on the surface of our earth

foi que todo o que facemos na superficie da Terra

will be returned to us to drink.

hásenos devolver para beber.

Our water planet is not just rivers, lakes and oceans,

O noso planeta de auga non son só ríos, lagos e océanos

but it's this vast network of groundwater that knits us all together.

senón unha ampla rede de auga subterránea que nos conecta a todos.

It's a shared resource from which we all drink.

É un recurso compartido do que todos bebemos.

E cando entendemos as conexións humanas coas augas subterráneas

And when we can understand our human connections with our groundwater

and all of our water resources on this planet,

e todos os recursos hídricos do planeta,

then we'll be working on the problem

entón ocuparémonos do problema

that's probably the most important issue of this century.

que quizais sexa o asunto máis importante deste século.

Así que nunca cheguei a ser a astronauta que sempre quixen ser,

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.

pero este dispositivo de mapeo deseñado polo Dr. Bill Stone serao.

En realidade transformouse.

It's actually morphed.

It's now a self-swimming autonomous robot,

Agora é un robot autónomo que nada,

artificially intelligent,

con intelixencia artificial,

and its ultimate goal is to go to Jupiter's moon Europa

e o seu obxectivo final é ir a Europa, a lúa de Xúpiter

explorar os océanos que están baixo a súa superficie conxelada.

and explore oceans beneath the frozen surface of that body.

And that's pretty amazing.

E iso é bastante abraiante.

(Applause)

(Aplausos)