Deep Oceans: Why explore the deep?

Why Explore the Deep:
Frank Howarth: The Deep Oceans has fascinated people for 1000s of years. I’m Frank Howarth
and I’m the director at the Australian Museum.
In these short videos we want to tell you something about the preparations for our very
own Deep Oceans Exhibition.
Frank Howarth: I’m with Michael Harvey the Australian Museums Manager of Exhibitions
and Creative Services.
Now Michael tell me, why are we doing an exhibition on Deep Oceans?
Michael Harvey: There is probably 3 or 4 different reasons to explore this topic.
First of all it is just a great topic. It is one of the great unexplored areas on earth.
We know more about the moon than we do about the Deep Oceans. Only 2 or 3 people have ever
actually been down to the deepest depths.
Michael Harvey: So it is this great mysterious unexplored place, yet it not a desert. It
is teeming with life and there is a lot we can say we can show about that life.
Secondly the Museum is very involved in deep ocean research. With something like 1.5 million
fish specimens with about 3 million invertebrate specimens we have the stuff.
We have the material that has come from the deep oceans and we are carrying out research
that helps us understand that. So we are apart of the story of exploring deep oceans.
Michael Harvey: Third thing is public interest. We know that our visitors are interested in
this topic. We have actually done visitor research on exhibition topics over the last
5-10 years and deep oceans was a topic that keep cropping up again and again.
So we knew that this was a topic that our visitors wanted to know about.
Michael Harvey: And I guess finally because of all those things, because of our involvement
because of the mystery it is a great start point to explore some much bigger stories.
So we can look at the deep oceans as an extreme environment. And then use that to explore
stories around evolution or adaptation.
We can look at the ecology and the systems of the deep oceans and look at how they are
being affected by human activity even by climate change.
It is a great jumping off point to start to tell some of the bigger stories that we as
a museum want to tell.