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Two miles under the Coral Sea
Phoebe stifled a yawn—but not out of boredom. It was well after midnight, and she was bone-tired. She and Jazz had managed to nab a late-night ROV time slot. There were still another three sites that she wanted to sample.
“Where to next?” Jazz asked, seated at the booth’s control station.
Fifteen matching cubicles ringed Kalliste Tier, the fourth level ofTitan Station Down. Each booth was separated by walls that ran from floor to ceiling and could be closed off by an accordion-style folding door both for privacy and to limit the ambient light when viewing the ROV’s camera footage.
Phoebe leaned over Jazz’s shoulder and studied the forty-five-inch monitor. It displayed a gorgeous high-definition view of the coral reefs sweeping past the vehicle. A window in the screen’s corner plotted the ROV’s relative position as it traveled across the illuminated fields. A trio of coordinates blipped crimson on the same map.
Phoebe pointed to one at the very edge, where the station’s lamplight faded into darkness. “Let’s continue to Loci A17.”
“Got it.”
Jazz manipulated the console’s toggles and drove the ROV farther out. Other knobs and switches were spread in an arc before her seat. They operated the array of equipment aboard each ROV: claw and caliper attachments, cutting tools and sampling jars. Unfortunately, the ROV’s range was limited to five hundred meters, the length of its fiber-optic tether.
As Jazz homed in on Loci A17, Phoebe studied the darkness beyond the station’s lamps, where the ROVs could not travel.
Farther out in the sunless depths, the Titan Project had seeded forty-two AUVs. The autonomous underwater vehicles operated on preset programs, mapping the surrounding landscape. They ran on batteries that lasted for a week before needing to be recharged. Unfortunately, the AUVs were not good platforms for collecting samples. Instead, they were used for high-resolution mapping and had been in operation for six months, tracking the surrounding landscape, all the way to the very edges of the deep trenches to the east.
During the past weeks, Phoebe had reviewed the AUVs’ camera and sonar logs. She had mapped the location of two dozen coral beds. None were larger than the one under the station, but several lay far deeper. She wanted to collect samples from there, too, but that would have to wait another three days, when she was scheduled to leave on a far-ranging HOV survey.
But until then...
“We’re almost there,” Jazz said, then whistled appreciatively. “And you picked out a beaut.”
Phoebe returned her attention to the coral beds closer at hand. On the screen, a six-meter-tall sprout of coral waved in the deep-ocean current. Its branches were densely packed and feathered by fields of emerald-green polyps.
“I spotted this lonely giant on the first day,” Phoebe commented. “It looks like a species of black coral.”
“If so, it’d be a record breaker. It’s easily twice the size of any that I’ve seen.”
Excited to learn more, Phoebe leaned closer. Black coral came in hundreds of species, with polyps of every hue: brilliant yellows, shimmering whites, even dark blues and purples. Yet, all of them had the same characteristic jet-black calcareous branches, lined by tiny sharp spikes. It was for the latter reason that some black corals were alsocalledthorncorals. And green ones, like this specimen, were sometimes named Christmas Tree corals due to their brilliant, dense branches.
So far, Phoebe had identified fourteen species of black coral sharing this reef, but her interest in this specimen went beyond its sheer size. “For it to have grown this large,” she said, “it must be ancient.”
Jazz nodded. “A veritable sequoia of black coral.”
“Exactly.”
Species of black coral were considered to be the longest-living marine animals. A polyp species in Hawaiian waters had been dated at 4,270 years old and continued to thrive.
Jazz manipulated the controls and circled the ROV around the tall specimen. She recorded it from every angle. “Did you ever get a consensus from the topside researchers about the age of these coral fields? I mean, how long has this oasis been hiding down here, waiting for us?”
“It’s still not clear. A marine archaeologist up inTitan X’s science globe is repeating some preliminary studies. He cored out a deep sample from the thickest areas of the reef and is using laser ablation to date it. The same technique was employed to clock the age of coral beds in the Mediterranean. That study concluded the coral had been growing continuously for more than 400,000 years.”
Jazz glanced back at her. “Wait. You said the archaeologist wasrepeatinghis tests. If he’s doing that, then he must be double-checking something thatrequiresdouble-checking.” She must have read Phoebe’s expression. “You’ve heard something already! And you’ve not told me?”
“Like I said, it’s still preliminary.”
“Tell me, or I’ll crash this ROV straight into the sand.”
Phoebe smiled. “According to the archaeologist’s initial surveys, he’s estimating these coral beds have been here for ten million years. Maybe longer.”
“Ten million...” Jazz whispered in awe.
“Or longer,” Phoebe repeated. “There’s no telling what this coral might reveal about the ancient past.”
This was what intrigued her the most about deep-sea coral and continued to be the focus of her research. Because coral grew so slowly at these extreme depths, their calcified skeletons incorporated ocean elements, creating an archive of marine conditions that predated humanity. Studying those preserved records promised to offer valuable insight into how the changes in the ocean affected coral growth, both in the past and into the future.
