In depth
Exploration fascinates me, grounded, I suspect, in centuries-old maps I saw as a child marked with sea serpents and other mythical creatures to denote uncharted, and therefore potentially dangerous, places. Travel books and explorers' biographies have always been my first port of call in reading and my pulse will often increase a notch when I learn of an interesting new destination. It was like that when first I heard of the isolated Indian Ocean island of Socotra, photos of which show a landscape that looks eerily like the Martian ones of science fiction. But I had no such 'Here be dragons' moment last week when I saw the headline, 'Cameron makes history with dive into the abyss'.
My initial reaction was to think that political ill had befallen the British prime minister, but reading on, I found the report was about James Cameron, the Hollywood maker of sci-fi blockbusters like Avatar, The Terminator and The Abyss. And those with a bent for accuracy may add Titanic. He had just returned from the deepest known place on earth, the western Pacific's Mariana Trench, which he described as 'a barren, desolate lunar plain'.
Only the third person to go to the 11km depth and the first to dive solo, using a tiny submarine, he said it was all about discovery, exploration and science. I somehow don't think so; with him filming his exploits in 3D and having ticked one of his 'must-dos', I sense his desire to further humankind's knowledge and understanding is limited.
Mechanical failure prevented Cameron from taking samples from the seabed and his dive was cut short by two-thirds, allowing him to observe only shrimp-like creatures a few centimetres in size. For all my wonder at what can survive at such depths, I had to breathe with relief at learning that. I am not a fan of the director's work, but he nonetheless has a vivid imagination and is a dreamer - the world needs such creative people. When it comes to discovery, exploration and science, though, I prefer such things to be left to people who know what they are doing.
It was not the feeling I had in February when Russian scientists announced that after years of drilling, they had reached the surface of Lake Vostok, undisturbed for 20 million years beneath 3.8km of Antarctic ice. About the size of Lake Ontario in Canada, there is no other place on earth that has been left in such a pristine state for so long. In its depths may lie life from the past or clues to what lives on other planets. Now that, to me, is a real discovery.
The scientists have had to take great care with their work. Contamination of the lake with the lubricants they have been using to drill could easily break the first code of exploration: to cause as little damage and disruption as possible. Not until the Antarctic summer in December will they be able to remove the sample for analysis. I await their findings much more than Cameron's 3D video.