People have always marveled at the majestic heights and grand stature of mountains. But others, like 76-yearold marine geologist Wang Pinxian, feel an even greater sense of awe at what lies in the vast depths of the planet’s oceans.
Wang described the unfathomable scale of the sea, “Mount Everest is the highest peak on land with an altitude of 8,844 meters, while Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the ocean with a depth of 11,034 meters. Even the highest mountain cannot fill the deepest trench. The bottom of the ocean is too deep!”
Wang is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and a senior professor of the School of Ocean and Earth Sciences at Tongji University based in Shanghai. Rather than retiring from the profession, he has chosen to continue his devotion to marine geology.
“Only by diving thousands of meters deep into the water can people see the real life of ocean and discover more about the Earth that we live on,” Wang said. In his mind, the mysteries of the deep sea are closely related to the future of China and the rest of the world.
For several decades, Wang has dedicated himself to studying oceanography and promoting oceanic knowledge among the general public as well as persuading the government to pay more attention to marine research.
In recent years, China has achieved remarkable progress in exploring oceans. China’s first manned deep-sea submersible Jiaolong set a new diving record by reaching a depth of 7,062 meters on June 27 in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench, making China the fifth country to possess deep-sea diving technology after the United States, France, Russia and Japan.
Wang regarded Jiaolong as a cutting-edge tool for deep-sea scientific research. “Without leading technology we cannot do further research of oceans. Technology and oceanography must develop together,” he said.
Born in Shanghai in 1936, Wang devoted himself to the advancement of marine science in China from an early age. Following the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the government began sending students to the former Soviet Union for further study. In 1956, Wang was selected for study at Moscow State University, where he majored in geology. Wang graduated from the university in four years and returned to China.
Following graduation, Wang worked at East China Normal University as a teacher. When he heard about the government’s plans for oil exploration in the ocean in 1968, he applied to the School of Ocean and Earth Science at Tongji University and was accepted into the program.
Wang and his team started their work from scratch. They turned a waste workshop into a laboratory, where a broken microscope and a Russian edition encyclopedia of paleontology were their only possessions.
Wang was then sent to the United States with a dozen other delegates from the Chinese geological circle. He was shocked by the leading position of American scientists’ research into the deep ocean and micropaleontology. After returning to China, Wang and his colleagues published an academic study titled Marine Micropaleontology of China. The book immediately aroused the interest of scientists worldwide, laying a foundation for closer communication between Chinese and foreign oceanographers.
In 1985, the United States launched the Ocean Development Program (ODP), which was co-sponsored by a group of countries. Despite the lack of funds, Wang persuaded China to join in the plan in 1998 at a membership fee of $500,000 per year. In Wang’s opinion, the global scientific project was crucial to China’s progress in the study of oceans.
Exploring endeavor
Wang considers the South China Sea a treasure for marine and climate scientists’ studies.
The South China Sea is an extended continental shelf of the Chinese mainland. Detailed climate records of the last 45 million years are ingrained at the bottom of the sea. The area is also an intersection of many ocean currents, which greatly influence the global monsoon system, Wang said.
“There are over 200 islands and reefs in the South China Sea, including Xisha, Nansha and Zhongsha islands. China has indisputable sovereignty over these islands. Therefore, it is the job and duty of Chinese scientists to research and explore them,” Wang said.
“The South China Sea is like a living organism,” Wang said. “The rock structure is his bone; sediments of various sea life and sand form his flesh; ocean currents act as the blood.”
In 1997, a proposal titled the Historic Record of East Asia Monson in the South China Sea and Its Global Influence submitted by Wang and his colleagues won first place in the ODP organization. The proposal led to the first oceanic drilling project in Chinese territorial waters in the spring of 1999, for which Wang was a chief scientist.
During that voyage, Wang and his team drilled 17 holes at six deep-sea locations and obtained a total 5,500 meters of rock core. After several years of analysis, Wang and his colleagues established a database of the environment and earth layer profile of the West Pacific Ocean with a time span of 32 million years, providing full and accurate materials for scientists to study the environmental change of the area.
After years of efforts, Wang and his wife, Sun Xiangjun, a research fellow of the Institute of Botany at the CAS, finally proved the origin of East Asian seasonal wind: It was caused by the inversion of ancient geography about 25 million years ago. According to their joint study, China used to be higher in the east and lower in the west, which was exactly opposite of today’s topography. The seasonal wind occurred when the physical features of China shifted.
Wang received the Milutin Milankovic Medal by European Geosciences Union in 2007 for his outstanding research in climatic changes.
Wang’s contributions to ocean science have also been praised by foreign scientists who collaborated with him. “Wang was one of the first to put monsoons in a global context. That was extremely original and insightful,” said Carlo Laj, a well-known French oceanic scientist. They worked in cooperation on a paleoceanographic study of the South China Sea.
Diving into the blue
In addition to climate and geological discoveries, Wang made other important findings during his study of the deep sea.
Wang found natural gas hydrate reserves in the South China Sea, for instance. “The iceshaped natural gas under the seabed can be used as clean energy,” Wang said. When the ice is lit and melts, it releases methane, which is a clean natural energy.
According to a preliminary calculation, there are much more natural gas hydrate re- the new energy resource could have huge potential in the future.
Most people believe that life cannot exist without sunlight. However, Wang’s study may change this viewpoint. “There is no sunlight below the depth of 600 meters under water. But people have discovered thousands of creatures below that depth. This unexpected discovery reveals the power of nature,”Wang said. “For the biosphere in the dark water world, life depends on terrestrial heat rather than sunlight.”
Few realize that the bottom of the sea has its own bio-system, Wang said. The underground water below the seabed can transfer many materials such as carbon, which is a key part of all lives on the Earth.
Wang is busy training young scientists and improving the level of research into the ocean. What keeps him going is the positive change of working conditions today.
China has devoted more attention to oceanic science in recent years. In particular, the National Natural Science Foundation of China launched the largest comprehensive deep-sea research project of the South China Sea in 2011. Wang has been designated as chief scientist in the undertaking. It will take eight years and 150 million yuan ($23.6 million) to conduct a thorough investigation in the South China Sea. Chinese scientists expect to discover the origins of the South China Sea, the interactive mechanism between the deep sea and bio-systems, and the area’s evolutionary history.