The marine biologist Her grandfather was a captain and whale catcher and as a child she was fascinated by the films of Jacques Yves Cousteau or Lotte and Hans Hass with a personal history like that maybe you ve got no choice but to pursue a marine career Antje Boetius is a deep sea explorer although that description falls a little short of her professional scope Since November 2017 the 52 year old has been at the helm of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven with branch offices in Potsdam and on the islands of Helgoland and Sylt with a total of 1 250 employees In addition Boetius is a professor of geo microbiology at University of Bremen and leads a research team for deep sea ecology and technology at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology During her professional career she has led nearly 50 expeditions spent several years at sea in total and performed several deep sea dives Just 150 years ago it was assumed that it was impossible for any life to exist between four to eleven thousand meters 14 000 to 36 000 feet below sea level Far from it as the deep sea is home to millions of species Nobody can exactly tell how many There have been fewer people in the deep sea than in outer space says Boetius She describes diving into this alien world like this At the top sunlight shines through the ocean layers That s when you can see all kinds of hues of blue Once you ve arrived at a depth of 400 meters 13 000 feet you re floating in total darkness When the onboard lamps are switched off you can see the glow of luminescent bacteria fish and jellyfish The researcher describes this spectacle as fireworks in the dark Boetius proved the existence of methane eating microorganisms in the deep sea The single celled organisms prevent the fermentation gas which is 22 times more harmful to the climate than CO2 from reaching the atmosphere of the oceans or 62 of the Earth s surface are deep sea areas The deep sea begins at 200 meters 650 feet below the water surface The temperature range there is relatively stable between 1 and 4 C 30 and 39 F in 2000 88 H20 in her genes Be it on board of the German research vessel Polarstern or a submarine deep sea researcher Boetius feels at home both under and above water Her grandfather survived the sinking of three ships 19 Global

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