Into the depths

Dr. Dorian Ashcroft was no stranger to life on a submarine.   Dorian had served three tours of duty as a sonar technician on the Los Angeles Class submarine USS Charlotte in the late 1990s.   His last tour in the North Atlantic had taken him to depths he’d not seen on prior tours.   Dorian entered the Navy after high school as a way to pay for college.   After basic training he spent 16 weeks in sonar technician training figuring his skills at math, science and listening to 90s grunge music might make him a valuable asset operating the sonar aboard a nuclear submarine.   He figured that the hours of listening to the rumble of the drop D bass guitar tuning that resonated from his stereo might have helped train his ears to listen for Russian submarines.  The research submarine “Atlas” that Dorian was descending in today was quietly exploring ocean depths he had never dreamed possible in the Navy.  

During his North Atlantic tour, the sonar crew detected two Russian submarines, what they believed were Severodvinsk and Akula class subs coming at the USS Charlotte from the North and South.  Captain Brock Nelson, who had commanded Los Angeles Class submarines for the last decade, thought it best to dive below the radar capabilities of his enemy and below what most on the crew of the Charlotte thought was safely above crush depth.  Crush depth for the Los Angeles boat was typically believed to be 1,500 ft below sea level, but Captain Brock knew better.   Dorian still remembered the creaking and groaning of the bulkhead after the Officer of the Deck commanded the helm to execute on a 5 degree down bubble and make his depth three zero zero zero feet.  

Crush depth is the submerged depth at which the submarine implodes due to the water pressure on the hull.   Death would be instantaneous as the implosion of a submarine at the pressures of these depths would take 1/20th of a second.

“Dr. Ashcroft? Are you ok, sir?” asked Victor. Victor Locke was the submarine technician assigned to pilot Dr. Ashcroft to the bottom of the ocean below the Antarctic Ice Shelf. Victor had never been on a nuclear submarine, but had piloted the two seat Atlas research submarine for Deep Blue Research for the last six years.   

“Yes, Victor.  I was reminiscing about a time on a much roomier submarine.”

“You’re referring to your time in the Navy Dr. Ashcroft?”

“It was a long time ago, Victor.  What is our current depth?”

“We are approaching 15,000 ft.  We have begun slowing our descent.”  

“Do you know what crush depth is on this research submarine, Victor?”

“Crush depth, sir?  I’m hoping we’d have thought about that long before we were almost 3 miles underwater.”

“From what I understand Victor, the crush depth for this sub is supposed to be 35,000 ft.  We won’t be anywhere near those depths.  Assuming that….whoa, hold on.”  

Dorian and Victor both felt the impact as the submarine rolled to starboard 20 degrees, knocking pens and papers and whatever wasn’t attached to the sub on to the floor.   The pink tentacle of a giant squid was now visible through the inches thick glass dome at the front of the submarine.  

“Holy shit, where did he come from!”  Victor barked.  Startled by the site of the squid Victor reflexively yanked the controls, disabling the auto pilot as he attempted to level out the submarine.   

“We’re gonna dive and see if we can lose him”, Victor said as he pushed the control yoke of the sub forward into a dive.  He knew they needed to get clear of the giant squid before it could make contact with components of the sub that were integral to navigation and propulsion.

“Why the hell didn’t we pick that thing up on sonar until now? Victor said as he and Dorian looked down at the sonar screen and saw the outline of the giant squid passing over and away from the submarine as they dove further down into the depths. 

“It was following us down from above and happened to be right in our blind spot. There was no way for us to pick him up on sonar.  We’re lucky he didn’t get caught up in the propulsion.” Dorian explained.

“You were a sonar technician Dr. Ashcroft; I have to ask have you ever seen anything like that before?”

“If you mean a giant squid, yes we spotted a handful on sonar during my tours in the Navy. If you mean someone riding in your blind spot, I knew it was theoretically possible. We trained for that in the Navy, but I’ve never seen it before with submarines, much less with something biological.”

“I’m going to slow our descent sir. The bottom is at 17,000 feet. I’m going to level out for a bit and reset a little after all that excitement.”

“Good idea, Victor.” Dorian said. He’d been through stressful moments on a submarine before, so the interaction with the giant squid didn’t raise his blood pressure much.

The submarine leveled off at 16,500 feet below sea level.  At this depth there is no natural light. The bubble of light around the perimeter of the sub was generated by two high intensity lights pointed downward from upright poles on the four corners of the submarine. It was eerie to know that while they could see nothing around them, there were giants at this depth.

“Ok, so it looks like another 500 feet and we should be within range of our target, sir.” Victor said after checking the instrumentation on the submarine to confirm their location and trajectory.

“Ok, let’s go 1° down bubble and slowly work our way down to the seafloor. We should start to see the methane field from about 100 feet out.” Dorian replied.

“What are you expecting to see, sir?” Victor inquired.

“Atlas one, this is surface. Did you go all-stop? Is everything ok down there? “The radio squawked with the voice of Submarine Operations Director James Wood as he called down to the Atlas from the control room of the research vessel owned and operated by Deep Blue Research 

“Surface this is Atlas. Yeah, we are ok. We had a run-in with a squid and stopped to reset. No damage and we are currently 500 ft above floor.” Victor replied. He was intentionally downplaying the giant squid incident hoping the crew up top didn’t decide to scrub the mission and have them ride 3 hours back to the surface for nothing. 

“Copy Atlas, mission is still a go. All systems look normal from up here. We show you at 16 point 5 and slow descent.” Wood said.

“We’ve reassessed our bearings and are at 16 point 5 with 1 degree descent to 17 where we expect to be at target.” 

“Copy. Please give us an update when you’re at target. Surface out.” 

“Back to our mission, sir.” Victor said, having hung the microphone of the radio back in its cradle.   “What is it you’re hoping to find down here?  I mean, I’ve been to the floor around Antarctica a couple of times, and there isn’t much interesting in this part of the world”

“Have you been here since the Ross Ice Shelf started to collapse?” Dorian asked. 

The Ross Ice Shelf on the Southern end of Antarctica was the largest ice shelf in Antarctica covering an area of almost 200,000 square miles.  Global warming had been destabilizing ice shelfs in Antarctica for the last several decades, but it was recently that this several hundred meters thick ice chunk had started to crack and collapse into the ocean.

“No, the last time I was in this area was 10 years ago, sir.” Victor replied. 

“Well, you saw the size of the icebergs we were navigating around up top. That was just the beginning of the break-up of the Ross Ice Shelf.  Over the last year atmospheric sensors at research stations across Antarctica have picked up increasing concentrations of methane gas, which we believe is coming from the ocean floor as result of the collapse of the Ross Ice Shelf.”

“So, we’re prospecting? Looking for methane down on the ocean floor? I thought you were a scientist sir, or is your research funded by oil companies?” Victor grinned. 

“This isn’t below ground methane Victor. What we are looking for is frozen methane that we believe is off gassing now that the ice sheet has started collapsing.  We don’t know if it’s the shock of the ice falling off Antarctica, or a change in the water pressure above the formation or something geologic below the surface; but something has changed and we need to understand the extent of the methane being released.”

“There are some scientists who believe that significant weather changes millions of years ago could be attributed to large scale releases of methane gas into the atmosphere. Methane is 80 time more harmful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.” Dorian explained.

“That won’t stop me from enjoying a good steak, with all due respect sir.” Victor mused.

“This isn’t about cow farts Victor. The emissions from cattle combined with increased methane from permafrost melting in Siberia are significant, but if what we are reading for methane on the surface is real, we have a much bigger issue. Victor we’ve been sent to assess what this methane hydrate field looks like below the collapsing Ross Ice shelf.”

A stream of fine bubbles like those in a glass of champagne were now visible riding up the surface of the thick dome shaped window at the front of the submarine.  

“I think we found your methane sir.” Victor pointed to the front of the sub.

The submarine slowly advanced forward as the bubbles intensified causing the submarine to tilt upward.

“I think we’re seeing a change in buoyancy with all the gases, sir. I’m going to take us 2° down bubble and increase our speed to continue our descent.” Victor said as he adjusted the descent of the submarine.

“Let’s try to get within 10 feet of the methane field and launch the probe. After that we will go up to 100 feet and get a better visual of the terrain with the Shit Leaf.”

The Shit Leaf was a term the crew had given the “Submarine High Intensity Tactical Light Emitting Array Field”, or SHITLEAF which was essentially a giant array of lights at the front of the submarine. This array of lights was designed to create a one-time flash that would allow cameras to get a clear visual of the deep ocean floor.

“10-4, sir. Approaching 50 feet. We’ve had to increase our speed 20% to hold our trajectory through the gasses.” Victor said as he adjusted the controls to get closer to the target. Victor started to count down their descent as they approached the ocean floor.

“Forty feet”

“Thirty feet”

“Twenty-five”

The bubbles continued to intensify the closer the submarine got to the ocean floor. Dorian could feel the submarine surge up and down as the bubbles rolled around the hull of the sub making their descent more difficult.

“Twenty”

“Eighteen”

“Fifteen feet, sir. Going to adjust descent to prepare to level out, if we can. Damn, this this is tough to navigate in.” Victor’s gaze on the instrument panel intensified as he focused on getting the submarine leveled out above the ocean floor.

“Thirteen”

“Twelve”

“Eleven”

“Ten feet sir, and we are leveled out.”

Victor grabbed the radio back out of the cradle and depressed the microphone. “Surface, this is Atlas. We are at target. Holding at 10 feet above floor.”

“Copy, Atlas.” Wood replied. Drop the probe, get a picture and get your asses back up here.”

“Is he usually this tense Victor?” Dorian asked as he prepared to release the probe that was tethered to the bottom of the submarine. The probe was five feet long and was pointed down from the submarine like the needle of a record player. The front of the probe was an auger that was designed to drill through the methane ice and measure the thickness of the methane field and report the results back to instruments on the sub.

“No, he just wants to get home to his new girlfriend and get laid.” Victor chuckled.

“Dropping probe in five, four, three, two, one.” Dorian counted down as he flipped the switch releasing the probe. There was a clunk from below the sub as the quick release dropped the probe into the methane ice. 

“Auger active, and we are getting a good signal.” Dorian reported. 

“While the probe is working let’s get up to 100 feet again and light things up and see what this thing looks like.” Dorian replied. 

“Copy, making my depth 100 ft.” Victor replied as he pulled back on the yoke and let the submarine rise to 100 ft above the sea floor. The bubbles were much less intense at the depth.

“Starting up the cameras and setting the timer for SHITLEAF.” Dorian said.

“Copy, donning personal protective equipment” Victor replied as he grabbed a black welding hood with a “Will weld for beer” sticker on it and put it over his eyes. Dorian turned the exterior cameras on and set a timer for the SHITLEAF before putting his welding hood on. 

“Timer activated. Don’t forget to look down.” Dorian reminded Victor. The SHITLEAF activated and even with the welding hoods on and their gazes averted from the glass of the submarine they could see a brilliant flash through the lens of their welding hoods.  

“Ok, SHITLEAF activation complete. Shutting down cameras.” Dorian said.

Dorian and Victor both pulled off their welding hoods. Victor started to pull up on the yoke of the submarine and grabbed the radio once again. “Surface, this is Atlas. Mission complete. Returning to surface.”

“Copy Atlas. Job well done.” Wood replied.

“This can’t be right” Dorian said as he studied the data coming from the probe. “The probe has gone twenty-five feet and hasn’t hit the sea floor yet.” 

“The methane ice is that thick?” Victor asked?

“Apparently. Let’s take a look at the pictures” Dorian said as he pulled open his laptop computer and plugged one end of an HDMI cable into the laptop and the other end into a port on his side of the cramped submarine.

“Oh my God…” Dorian said, as the picture came into view.  The terrain of the ocean floor below the collapsing Ross Ice Shelf was a rolling terrain of barren hills that extended for miles out to the horizon. The intense light pulse from the SHITLEAF lit up the ocean floor with the intensity of the mid-day sun which allowed the cameras to capture a split-second crystal-clear view from the submarine all the way to the horizon. From 100 ft above the sea floor, they could see nothing but deep blue rocks of frozen methane gas with champagne bubbles rising above as far as they could see to the horizon over 50 miles out.

“What are we going to do Dorian?” Victor asked, forgoing any formalities as the gravity of the situation grabbed their attention.

“I don’t know Victor. I really don’t know.”