By Tom Iliffe, Texas A&M University marine biology professor, for The Conversation
Maybe when you picture a university professor doing research it involves test tubes and beakers, or perhaps poring over musty manuscripts in a dimly lit library, or maybe going out into the field to examine new crop-growing techniques or animal-breeding methods. All of it’s good, solid research and I commend them all.
Then there is what I do – cave diving. To study the biology and ecology of coastal, saltwater caves and the marine fauna that inhabit them, my cave diving partners and I head underground and underwater to explore these unique and challenging ecosystems. Often we go to places no other human has been. While the peaks of the tallest mountains can be viewed from an airplane or the depths of the sea mapped with sonar, caves can only be explored firsthand.
Around the globe, from Australia to the Mediterranean, from Hawaii to the Bahamas and throughout the Caribbean, I have explored more than 1,500 such underwater caves over the last 40 years. The experience can be breathtaking. When you are down 60 to 100 feet in a cave that has zero light and is 20 miles long, you never know what you are about to see as you turn the next corner.
My primary focus is searching for new forms of life – mostly white, eyeless crustaceans – that are specifically adapted to this totally dark, food-poor environment. Cave diving is an essential tool in our investigations since the caves I’m interested are filled with water: typically a layer of fresh or brackish water on the surface and then saltwater at depths of 10 to 20 meters or more.
There’s no other way to access these unexplored areas than to strap on your scuba tanks and jump in.