![]() ![]() The mission is paid for by an eccentric Texas millionaire, Victor Vescovo, who wishes to send himself to the “Five Deeps”-the deepest points in each of the five oceans.Īlthough Vescovo is convinced to contribute the resulting data to the ocean-mapping project known as Seabed 2030, that isn’t why Cassie was hired. We are introduced to the modern effort to use advanced sonar on the seafloor by following Cassie Bongiovanni, a young scientist who takes the job of mapper aboard the Pressure Drop. This is the stage on which the drama of The Deepest Map: The High-Stakes Race to Chart the World’s Oceans, by journalist Laura Trethewey, takes place. If, indeed, deep seabed mining happens, empty swaths on the map aren’t just a danger for miners, but for the undiscovered ecosystems that have flourished deep underwater since well before the first human was born. Under the rules of the International Seabed Authority, it will soon be possible for private companies backed by states to exploit ocean-bottom resources in international waters.īut there’s a problem: Whereas the moon, Mars, and Antarctica are mapped in exquisite detail, the seabed, enfolded in miles-deep water, remains largely unknown. Yet today, while space remains extravagantly expensive to access and Antarctic law forbids the exploitation of resources, the deep seabed is beginning to look like a promising source of metals in a tech-hungry world. They are hell on equipment and require human visitors to spend most of their time in purpose-built mechanical bubbles lest they die. Was this due to the enlightened liberalism and environmentalism of the 20th century? Perhaps, but one reason that it was possible to convert an area larger than Earth’s surface to a commons was that all of these places are awful. The Deepest Map: The High-Stakes Race to Chart the World’s Oceans, Laura Trethewey, HarperCollins, 304 pp., $32, July 2023.Īs it turned out, there was little conflict-and less wealth. The book cover for The Deepest Map by Laura Trethewey By the middle of the last century, however, Antarctica, the seafloor, and outer space were accessible, and all three looked like potential sources of a wealth of minerals and land, and with it, the danger of a 19th-century-style territorial scramble. In any previous century, proposing property law for Mars would’ve been the kind of thing that one yells on the street between discussions on regulating werewolf populations and usage of the philosopher’s stone. ![]() The moon and Mars together have about 60 percent of the surface area of Earth. Antarctica and the deep sea alone constitute more than 50 percent of Earth’s surface. The legal structures governing Antarctica and outer space were worked out in the 1960s, and the treaty for the international seabed was ratified by the mid-90s. Three once-inaccessible regions were not only reached for the first time, but even more astonishingly, ended up amicably regulated by a consortium of nations and made into lasting international commons. ![]() Some of the most optimistic developments of the 20th century remain largely unknown. ![]()
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