The Dark Frontier Unlocking the Secrets of the Deep Sea

About this book

The deep sea is one of humanity's last frontiers. For most of our history, it has been a remote realm, invoking awe and terror as it lays shrouded in darkness. But here, where the light cannot reach, lies a strange, wonderful and breathtaking portal into Earth's past, teeming with scientific marvels and lessons for the future of life on this planet.

In The Dark Frontier, marine microbiologist and expert deep-sea explorer Jeffrey Marlow plunges us into the unreachable realm and invites us into close-up encounters with its hidden brilliance. There are translucent shrimp that dance through sulfurous vents, crabs that stretch twelve feet from claw to claw and the eerie chalk-white towers of the 'Lost City'. Immersive and illuminating, Marlow's journeys heed warnings too: our reach is exceeding our grasp. We are irrevocably changing the deep sea before we even know it.

This expansive book offers crucial and surprising insights into the birthplace of life on ancient Earth. It shows how life can thrive in even the most extreme conditions and expands our understanding of possibilities – and our responsibilities – on earth and beyond.

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Biography

Jeffrey Marlow is a deep-sea explorer, published scholar, international science policy adviser and experienced journalist. He studies the role that microorganisms play in deep-sea environments and the amazing metabolic tools they have evolved to handle the challenging environmental conditions they face.

Alongside his deep-sea work, he has conducted original research on the search for life on Mars, serving on the science teams for NASA's robotic missions. Marlow is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Boston University, having completed an M.Phil. as a Marshall Scholar at Imperial College London, and a PhD. at the California Institute of Technology, and postdoctoral work at Harvard University, where he worked as a Research Associate for over five years. He has also served as a representative of the scientific community at the United Nations and is both a National Geographic Emerging Explorer and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.