Computer-generated terrain in the style of a bathymetry map. Image by Jeff Emtman.

How familiar are you with the shape of the continents? What about the shape of the seafloor?

If you’re unfamiliar with the contours of our planet’s underwater mountain ranges and plateaus and valleys, then you’re not alone. No one really knows what’s down there; at least, not in any great detail. That’s because, well, the water is in the way, and that makes it hard for our mapping satellites to see down there. Even the seafloor maps we now have, the ones that include prominent underwater features, are often based on predictions from satellite observations of the oceans’ surface instead of observed data. At present, as much as 80% of the seafloor has yet to be mapped in detail. Even the Moon and Mars are mapped at a higher resolution than our own oceans.

Dr. Vicki Ferrini wants to change that. She is a marine geologist who specializes in bathymetry, the science of mapping underwater topography, and uses sonar to take measurements of water depth. She uses these measurements and other data to create topographic maps of the seafloor. Vicki is part of a global effort called Seabed 2030, an initiative sponsored by the Nippon Foundation and the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) to create a high-resolution map of the entire ocean by the year 2030. Having a completed map will inform almost everything we do in the ocean, including modelling currents and the climate, exploring for minerals, oil, and gas, and managing fisheries and underwater habitats. Seafloor mapping was essential to the plate tectonics revolution, and some scientists think that a more detailed map could lead to another major shift in oceanography.

Vicki isn’t just interested in mapping the deep ocean. In this episode, Vicki tests a small sonar designed for shallow waters. She and her colleagues need it to map a shallow lake in the middle of a crater on a newly-formed island near Tonga in the South Pacific. Mapping this small lake will give Vicki and her colleagues some insight into how the island formed, and why it hasn’t eroded as quickly as other volcanic islands like it.

Producer James Dinneen went to Vicki’s childhood home on Cape Cod in Massachusetts to record as she tested the sonar device she was about to send off to her colleagues in Tonga.

This episode includes archival tape, used with permission from San Francisco Maritime National Park Association.

Producer: James Dinneen
Editor: Bethany Denton, Jeff Emtman
Music: James Dinneen, Lucky Dragons, The Black Spot

A preliminary map of the island's shallow waters, made with data from Vicki's sonar. Image provided by Vicki Ferrini.

Lucy and her mate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Photo by Jeff Emtman.

Natural history museums are art galleries. Scientifically focussed art galleries, but art galleries nonetheless.

Ian Tattersall, of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, is a paleontologist who sometimes oversees the construction of models for the museum. Of personal interest to Here Be Monsters producer Jeff Emtman are reconstructions of very lifelike early humans, one with an arm draped over the other. Ian calls these the “Laetoli Figures”—named for the place in modern-day Tanzania where some remarkable footprints of two hominids were found preserved in volcanic ash.

As far as early humans go, Australopithecus Afarensis are well understood. There are 300+ individuals in the fossil record, including the famous ~40% complete fossil of “Lucy”.

Given the evidence, there’s a lot scientists can be pretty certain in declaring: they lived in the trees, but they could walk upright. They had small brains and big jaws, but their canine teeth looked a lot like a modern human’s.

There are other questions that are answerable through inference, through studies of modern animals and other fossils. These techniques can yield a strong degree of certainty.

But if the artist were to stop constructing at the edge of certainty, the models would never be completed. There are certain things that are essentially unknowable about these early hominids, like: “What did their skin look like?” “What color was their hair?” “Did they have the dark sclera of an ape, or the whites-of-the-eye of a modern human?”

These uncertainties are ultimately up to the artist to answer. “When you’re making a museum exhibit,” Ian (not an artist) points out, “you’re trying to create an illusion. And to work at all, the illusion has to be complete. And so you have to have all the details in there.”

Ian Tattersall, Curator Emeritus of Human Origins at the American Museum of Natural History and a replica of an early human colloquially named “Lucy”.

But these details are a form of artistry used as evidence by biblical creationists to lambast hominid reconstructions. They see it as part of an effort to deceive the public, to lead them to believe that these ancient hominids were more human-like than they actually were. Of particular interest to them is that question of the light sclera vs. dark sclera. One author writes:

Notice that a fossilized eyeball was not found. So how would anyone know that the sclera was white, which would cause it to look more human. [sic] The reconstruction is pure speculation about how Lucy’s eye looked.

Natural history museums are faced with a decision: create full-flesh reconstructions that by necessity contain elements of artistic license, or, present the public with mere bones. Most seem to opt for the former, and understandably so. The museum serves the public, and, like HBM producer Jeff Emtman, they want to see something relatable and remarkable, a piece of scientifically-oriented art.

And this question the artist must face, the question of the dark sclera (more ape-like eyes) and the light sclera (more human-like eyes) reveals something interesting about the artist and the process used to create the art. The choices an artist makes can speak to their worldview, their biases, and their knowledge per their location in the world and the current moment in time.

Ian recognizes this, saying,

You could not do a reliable reconstruction of an ancient human being or a dinosaur, or an extinct mammal without the science; and you certainly couldn’t do it without the art. And this is where the two really intersect in a meaningful way.

And the AMNH itself houses exhibits related to the ways in which modern assumptions about the past have affected the way the past is present, such as: Griffins in the Gobi Desert (protoceratops), Cyclops of the Mediterranean (dwarf elephants), and the infamous unicorn horns of Western Europe (narwhal).

The Griffin

The Unicorn

The Cyclops

Ian says that, in the quarter century since the construction of the Laetoli Figures, dominant scientific perception has changed to suggest that Australopithecus afarensis might have actually had dark sclera. As he puts it, “science is a work in progress.”

Jeff Emtman produced this episode and took the photos.
Voicemails from HBM listeners including Daniel Greene, Rachel Schapiro and Tony Baker.

Music: The Black Spot, The Other Stars

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Here Be Monsters

HBM126: Sounding the Deep

HBM090: Two Small Creatures with Human Eyes