Our universe seems
a barren place ...
full of extreme conditions
hostile to living things.
Our own planet has such
extreme environments.
Places where, until recently,
we believed nothing could survive.
Yet life is tenacious if
it can just get a foothold.
We call the tiny organisms living in
such inhospitable places extremophiles ...
microbes which thrive in
the harshest of conditions.
Caves, long dismissed as
dark and lifeless deserts,
turn out to be ideal homes
for these hardy life forms.
Their scientific
potential appears vast.
This underground frontier ...
holds an irresistible attraction
for two courageous young women.
The Arizona desert,
bone-dry and scorching-hot.
Perfect for extremophiles.
Nancy Aulenbach and Hazel Barton ...
are part of a small team
exploring unmapped caves ...
near the Grand Canyon.
The rest of the team,
Gordon Brown and Scott Davis,
search for other caves.
Hazel and Nancy are almost certainly
the first cavers to explore this cave.
To get here they rappeled
Nancy Aulenbach from Georgia is
the team's technical specialist.
As an instructor in
cave rescue techniques,
Nancy's rope skills
are finely honed.
At 98 pounds, she is well suited for
rescuing cavers stuck in very tight places.
In unexplored caves
we always do surveys.
Later my husband will use our data to
draw the very first map of this cave.
He is a caver.
In fact, I come from an
entire family of cavers.
Hazel Barton, a native of
England has a PhD in Microbiology.
I found crystals which
only form in still water.
This cave probably formed
millions of years ago.
While Nancy studies the cave
wall with a magnifying glass,
Hazel collects samples
of tiny organisms ...
which could help cure
serious diseases.
You are never sure what speck of dust
might contain the secret to a new medicine ...
that could save lives.
Often, the most dangerous part of
exploring caves is just getting to them.
Gordon will vouch for that.
What turns this river so
blue is dissolved limestone.
The limestone is
gradually re-deposited ...
to form travertine dams ...
which are first cousins to
the stalagmites we see in caves.
All this blue water and travertine ...
is visible proof that caves
are forming upstream right now.
I got time-off from my job
as a teacher's assistant ...
because I promised to e-mail field
reports back to my second-grade students.
Here is how Hazel described her
research to my second-graders:
The tiny organisms called
microbes that live in caves ...
might contain special chemicals
that we could make medicine from.
You know caves are not
only a place to visit,
they are a place where you
can do a lot of research,
you can survey, you can
do biological inventories,
you can find new species that
people have never seen before.
I look for medically useful
organisms everywhere,
even in scum ponds,
after all a rather useful
medicine called penicillin ...
was found in the same mould
that grows on rotting cheese.
You know, just collecting some more
boogers, the smellier the better.
While we were on Navajo land,
Nancy and I heard
about a medicine man ...
making a sand painting.
Through these sand paintings,
the Navajo believe that they can tap
into the healing powers of the earth.
Of course that's what I do too,
I go deep into the earth
in search of unknown cures.
We are using kayaks
on this expedition ...
because the river is
a good vantage point ...
for spotting unexplored
caves on the cliff walls.
As my husband, Brent, says,
"if you aren't wet
you aren't caving".
Some rivers run through caves for miles
before bursting on to the surface,
but that's of little concern as
you approach a precipice wondering ...
"is this a good idea?"
Unlike canyons, which are
carved by fast moving rivers,
caves are formed by a subtler,
but equally effective, force.
Most limestone caves start when groundwater
picks up carbon dioxide in the air and soil.
As the mildly acidic water leaks
through cracks in the earth's crust,
it dissolves the surrounding
rock, leaving pockets,
caves.
That's how a chamber 300 ft. high
can be carved from solid stone ...
in less than a million years.
Walls are decorated when trickling
water-deposits dissolve stone ...
to form stalagtites, stalagmites
and other flow-stone formations.
Since the purest water on earth
is found deep in pristine caves,
sometimes we use rafts to explore,
which cause less contamination
than swimming.
Cave decorations are as
delicate as fine crystal,
easily shattered and
impossible to repair.
That's why good cavers are trained
to move gently underground.
When water leaves a
residue of minerals,
they crystallise and
gradually build up ...
to become delicate cave formations.
As Hazel and her colleagues
in the lab have found,
extremophiles are tough.
We suspect that, because of the
environment in which they live,
extremophiles produce
potent chemical weapons.
If we can isolate these
chemical compounds,
we can use them in the
fight against disease.
Only the hardiest
extremophiles could survive ...
deep in the ice of the North Pole.
To collect them,
Hazel and Nancy have joined
an Arctic expedition ...
to Greenland.
Greenland's ice cap is massive.
If melted, it would raise
the world's oceans 18 ft.
When I first saw camp and saw all these
tiny specks out in the middle of nowhere,
you know I started thinking ...
"we are going to be
here for awhile".
The expedition is led by
Frenchman Janot Lamberton.
Janot has gone deeper into ice
caves than anyone else alive.
In summer,
melting ice creates raging rivers,
which plunge into the caves,
cutting them deeper and deeper.
Heat from the sun can weaken ice.
These jumbled blocks were
once the roof of a cave ...
just like the one we are
about to venture into.
We started early so we wouldn't
be inside when the roof collapsed.
Once I dropped into the cave,
I focused on how
awesome it was to be ...
one of the first people
to see that place.
The ice is alive and you can
hear it creak and groan ...
as it all inches very
slowly towards the sea.
The ice is a databank,
storing centuries of information
for the team's glaciologist,
Dr Luc Moreau.
And also the ice is a
memory of the climate.
You see different layer ...
a blue layer represent the summer ...
and white layer represent the winter,
so we can calculate
the age of the ice here.
The glacier is truly a time capsule,
the deeper you go,
the more the seasonal
layers are compressed.
Only 60 ft. down,
Hazel can collect samples
which fell as snow,
centuries ago.
Err so far we so far found just
bunches of different bacteria:
gram negative, gram positive,
cocci, spyrokeets ...
all kinds of cool looking stuff,
and the thing is there's not much I
can do with them here in the field,
the only thing I can do this freeze
them down and take them back with me.
The bacteria Hazel wants most ...
lie buried beneath 500 ft. of ice.
The team cannot descend the deep
until there is a four day cold snap ...
to stop the flow of water.
They soon get their wish.
The other day it was -12 centigrade
with a windshield of -26 centigrade ...
which is colder than a freezer ...
so it was very cold, bitterly cold.
Big-time.
Too cold to be pleasant.
Waiting for the water to
freeze up is the hardest part,
because we're out in
the middle of an ice cap,
there's not a whole lot to do.
This is definitely a caver's haircut.
To prepare for the deep descent,
Nancy has to learn to measure
the movement of the ice,
as the cave walls are slowly pushed in by
the tremendous weight of the glacier.
Oh, so from this point to this point ...
is what we measure
how it closes, okay.
Four days into the cold snap,
Janot decided to risk perhaps
his deepest descent ever,
to get samples for Hazel.
Only days ago this
was a deadly waterfall.
The deeper you go,
the more unstable the ice becomes.
Janot has seen ice boulders burst
from the walls like cannon shots.
loose without warning.
So he purges the
walls of loose ice,
to protect the team
members who will follow.
Sometimes to set ice
screws in the safest spot,
Janot turns himself
into a human pendulum.
Assisting Janot on the descent,
Luc is concerned
about dripping water ...
icing up the rope at 200 ft.
I have rappeled under hundreds
of vertical pits around the world,
but never anything like this.
Ice adds an element
of unpredictable risk.
At just over 500 ft.,
Janot grows increasingly concerned
about the instability of the ice.
This is the second deepest ice
cave Janot has ever explored.
As Hazel rappels,
Janot radios up and warns
her not to descend too far.
Instead, he will bring
her the deepest sample.
A large block of ice above
Janot seems ready to break loose.
He wastes no time in collecting
the samples for Hazel ...
before starting the
long climb back out.
Perhaps the microbes Janot
risked his life for ...
will one day offer
a cure for disease.
But it will take years of
research to unlock that secret.
Some extremophiles can
stay out here for 100 years,
but I have found a few
weeks was quite my limit.
I knew I would miss my
new French friends though.
When you go caving with someone,
you trust your life to them ...
and they to you,
you become friends for life.
The hills near my
home in Georgia ...
are ideal terrain for
the formation of caves.
Just as extremophiles thrive
in the ice cap of Greenland,
bats are well adapted to
classic limestone caves.
These flying mammals sleep all
day and come out at sunset to feed.
are endangered,
but not this colony.
The 20 million bats here eat a half
a million pounds of insects every night.
Thanks to special training,
Nancy can introduce
her class to this ...
under appreciated creature
on a field trip.
Any questions?
What to do bats eat?
Well, this kind of
bat eats, scorpions.
Do you believe that?
I wouldn't want to eat
a scorpion, would you?
And bats eat a lot of insects too,
they get rid of those nasty
mosquitoes that bite your legs,
make you itch.
Like bats, serious cavers will
go a long way to find a good cave.
So when Hazel invited me on another
far flung search for extremophiles,
I was raring to go.
Southern Mexico,
the Yucatan peninsula
juts defiantly into the Gulf.
These ancient Mayan temples ...
were built on one huge
limestone plateau.
The plateau holds hundreds
of miles of cave passage,
the longest underwater
cave system in the world.
The caves are entered
through cenotes,
natural wells.
How did it go, did you
all find anything?
Hey kids, I'm still down
here in Mexico with Hazel,
and we are looking for something
called a halocline.
A halocline is where the freshwater
from the stream, like this,
meets the salt water of the ocean,
and it forms this really blurry layer.
You see this blurry layer?
Hazel thinks there are some special
bugs which live in this halocline,
so that's why we are looking for it.
Well, that's about
it for right now.
And I love you all and give
yourselves a big hug from me.
Goodbye.
To find an uncontaminated halocline,
our guide, Jorge Gonzalez,
led us to a remote cave,
deep in the jungle.
If the freshwater in this cave
flows all the way to the sea,
it must pass through a halocline.
To find out, Nancy and Hazel
used fluorescein dye,
which does not harm
the environment.
If this green dye comes
out where we expect,
at a coastal lagoon,
then we will know that this cave
is connected directly to the sea.
Hazel retrieved the water collector
she placed at the mouth of the
underground stream the day before.
The slightest trace of fluorescein
will show up under my black light.
Since the green dye went
through to the ocean,
we went back to the
cave the next day.
I respect Hazel's decision
to take up cave diving,
but I promised my
family I'd never do it.
Cave diving has been called the most
dangerous adventure in the world.
Survival takes training,
caution and luck.
We are laying a dive line,
it is a bit like leaving
trail of breadcrumbs ...
to find your way back home.
Jorge affixes arrows to the line,
to guide the divers
back to the exit.
There are rules
that we never break.
We always turn around
and head for the exit ...
when we have used up
third of our air,
so we have extra air in case we
run into problems on the way out.
Life in total darkness has made
this species of fish blind.
To compensate, its other senses
have become more acute.
When debris rains down
from the ceiling,
you know that no one has
ever been this way before.
If the silt gets kicked up in a huge cloud
and you lose sight of the dive line,
you may never find it again.
And you could run out of air before you
ever find your way out of the cave.
When we reached a breakdown pall,
I wasn't sure if I could get
through the small passage,
but the volume of
water flowing through ...
suggested that was more
cave on the other side,
so I had to find out.
Open ocean divers wear scuba
tanks on their backs,
but cave divers go sidemount,
so we can squeeze through
narrow passages.
In any really tight spot,
you can remove your tanks,
push them ahead ...
and then follow them
through the hole.
We were approaching
our turnaround.
I will not break that
rule, no matter what.
Just when the cave seemed to be reaching
the right depth for a halocline,
we hit a dead end.
In the few moments it took for
us to hunt for an opening,
we kicked up a huge cloud of silt.
As soon as Hazel and Jorge worked
their way out of the silt cloud,
they headed for the exit.
Just because fluorescein dye
makes it through a passage,
that doesn't mean that we can.
You don't look too happy,
what happened?
I wasn't in much of a talking
mood but my mind was made up,
we'd try a different cave.
The rainforest is an important
source of new medicines ...
due to its biological diversity.
A great variety of cave life ...
is starting to prove
just as productive.
I wanted more biological diversity,
but the arrival of the rainy season
meant that time was running out ...
we needed to find
the halocline fast.
We saw a chain of cenotes,
perhaps connected by
an underground river.
I got GPS coordinates on the
biggest cenote in the chain,
a good starting point
for the next dive.
We decided to use scooters ...
to give us more range in
our hunt for the halocline.
As the sunlight
disappeared behind us,
I felt what all scientists
feel in their guts ...
"here I go again,
into the black void".
There was already a dive
line for us to follow,
toward the ocean.
Someone had been here
before us, but when?
It was spooky when the
dive line ran out.
This must be where our mystery
trailblazer turned back.
We made an educated guess as to where
the underground river comes out.
That's where I'm headed with my GPS.
Still no halocline,
but the cave was getting deeper,
so I had a good feeling about our
chances as we continued downstream.
The elusive halocline.
When we got our glimpse
of it downstream,
we anchored our scooters ...
to keep the propellers from
disturbing the halocline.
I knew from the blurry layer,
that it was definitely it,
a well-defined and
uncontaminated halocline.
Anything living in this boundary
between the salt and fresh water is,
by definition, an extremophile ...
with a unique system for survival.
I made sure to collect from
different levels of the halocline,
to increase the variety
of the samples.
My samples from the halocline
are very precious.
Who knows what cures may be waiting
in the samples I collected today.
Unfortunately, I will have to
wait a long time to find out ...
because it can take years to
approve and test a safe new drug.
For the moment,
all I know is that
I am very, very happy.
I got it. You got it?
It may seem I'm this
free-spirited scientist,
but I'm really part
of the research team.
My colleagues count on me to
bring back unique microscopic life.
Often I don't find what
we were looking for,
but I find something else,
totally unexpected,
and just as it useful.
Life is full of surprises.
A powerful microscope can reveal a
whole universe in a drop of water.
In just six short years ...
the search for extremophiles ...
has produced a potential
new treatment for leukaemia,
and added 12 new kingdoms
to the tree of life.
Each kingdom is distinct
from the others ...
as, say, a cabbage
is from a dolphin.
Just when we think we have
seen every inch of our planet,
we find somewhere
else we haven't looked.
Remote, mysterious places
of extreme potential,
places where the
horizon turns inward ...
and waits for cavers to
expand it for us all.
I am going to be caving until
my body completely falls apart.
I'm going to do everything possible ...
that I can contribute
to the world of caving,
in my wheelchair if I have to.
I'm always going to be
caving in my heart, always.