KENNY BROAD: “It’s a mental game, it is not a physical game. This isn’t macho, and it’s not thrill-seeking. It’s more about keeping your breath rate under control.”
BARBARA KLEIN: For most explorers, though, the possibility of discovery in these cave environments makes the experience worth the risk.
KENNY BROAD: “You can jump into what looks like an insignificant little hole in the ground, and come out with information that’s of value to many different disciplines, from a scientific-academic perspective.”
Scientists are interested in these caves because oxygen-free conditions there are similar to those on Earth long ago, before oxygen existed on our planet.
KENNY BROAD: “What was life like? And when I say the ancient oceans, maybe a more dramatic way to phrase this question is ‘How did life form?’ I’m talking about life three point five billion years ago.”
He says the microbes that were present then did not leave a clear fossil record for scientists to study. So studying the organisms in these oxygen-free caves gives clues about the past.
KENNY BROAD: “So what happens here is we have a modern day analogy for what the oceans were like in terms of both the chemistry and the biology.”
Kenny Broad dives in Dan's Cave on Abaco
STEVE EMBER: Experts are not only interested in life on our planet. Astrobiologists can compare information about these organisms and their environment to other oxygen-free environments, like those in space. They study these extreme conditions to understand how and where life might exist on other planets.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25