Last month, MSES's Randy Monroe MS was invited to meet world-renown oceanographer and explorer Dr. Bob Ballard at the Dean Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek as part of their Guest Speaker series. The meeting was made possible by KTVU Channel 2 News and the Marine Science Institute based in Redwood City, CA.

All of Mt. Diablo Unified School District's 5th grade classes including other area schools in Pittsburg and Antioch have the opportunity to spend a day on-board the  doing a variety of "real" data-based oceanographic sampling each winter while moored in the delta.  Students from all over the S.F. Bay area utilize the ship the rest of the year when its at home in the South Bay. Randy has been working MSI and their delta program for the past 10 years.

While Dr. Ballard is famous for discovering the Titanic, his greatest fame comes from the discovery of hydrothermal vent systems near mid-ocean ridges at the bottom of every ocean. This has led to the knowledge and understanding of completely new ecosystems. Dr. Ballard's initial discovery off of the East Pacific Rise found bizarre and strange creatures feeding on bacteria that uses hydrogen sulfide near water at 300 degrees Celcius; hot enough to melt lead. These organisms include albino shrimp, giant clams, brown mussels and 6 foot tube worms; which have red blood from hemoglobin similar to humans. The bacteria that live inside the tube worm's gut metabolizes hydrogen sulfide chemosynthetically. Though chemosynthesis is the base mechanism in these particular ecosystems, photosynthesis plays an indirect role as dissolved oxygen is used in the metabolic processes of the hyrogen sulfide. Later discoveries in the Atlantic found methanogens that form the base of a true chemosythetic food web that neither directly, nor indirectly relies on photosynthesis and dissolved oxygen to metabolize.

Its is these novel extremophillic bacteria that intrigued Monroe regarding his astro-biological quest.  It poses the real possibility of life on other terrestrial icy bodies such as Europa and Enceladus; moons of Jupiter and Saturn respectively that have liquid water oceans and believed to have sea-floors with volcanic activity similar to Earth.  This was the basis for his research at the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) as part of the Microbial Ecology Program (MEP) Team in 2006-2008 under Dr. Phil Hugenholtz.

Dr. Ballard's insightful lecture addresses the tremendous need to further our understanding of our own planet and Earth's oceans. His remark, "We know more about OUR moon than OUR own oceans" leads to the obvious... so, let's keep exploring!