Research
for Shark’s Station
Introduction
While Oceania:
The Underwater City took a lot of research to complete and Allie’s Return considerably less, Shark Station fell somewhere in between.
I found myself returning to researching space science and in particular, how to
live on a space station. I also had to learn about growing food in an isolated
environment without sunlight and soil. And of course, I had to research more
about some of the animals I wished to feature in the novel. In all, a week of
intense research gave me enough information to write the latest adventure of
Allie’s and Dylan’s. Here’s just a small portion of what I learned.
Setting:
The Sirena Deep
When I set out to write this novel, I knew I didn’t
want to choose the iconic Challenger Deep to place the story. It was too well
known and didn’t make sense for a secret research station for Oceanians to be
kept safe from Land Dwellers if it’s a place people continually strive to dive
to. Instead, I decided on the second-deepest part of the ocean, but upon
commencement of my research, I noticed an obvious problem. There is almost no
research on the Sirena Deep. Besides the knowledge of how deep it is, little is
known about what lives there. I try to be cautious in my research and use as
many primary sources as I can. However, when researching the Sirena Deep, all
the notes I took didn’t even take up one page of a Word document.
So, here’s what I found in bullet form:
· The depth is 10,809m (35,462ft)
· Microbial mats that fed on hydrogen and methane were found there
· Sirena Deep is 144.8 km (90mi) south of Guam
· Sirena Deep was discovered in 1997
· The location of Sirena Deep is 12.0654° N, 144.5811° E.
To read the scant research yourself,
you can click on the below links:
Mariana
Trench
After realizing there was so little research on the
Sirena Deep, I looked into the Mariana Trench next. To my (by now) no surprise,
there wasn’t a lot about the Mariana Trench either, but it was substantially
more than the Sirena Deep. The trench ranges from 6,000 to 10,000m
(19,685-36,089ft) and is shaped in an arc that is 2,550km (1,584.5mi) long and
50km (31.1mi) wide. Over 200 different types of microorganisms were discovered
in the mud collected by James Cameron in the Challenger Deep. Within the trench,
there are several submarine volcanoes. The pressure at the bottom of the Mariana
trench is 8 tons per square inch or (703kg per square m). Scientists on the HMS
Challenger used sounding equipment to discover the trench in 1875. There are
hydrothermal vents that emit acidic hydrogen sulfide. Bacteria eat this sulfide
and are at the bottom of the food chain down there. Temperatures surrounding
these vents can be up to 300°C (572°F). Animals that live at the bottom of the
trench are estimated to live a long time due to the cold, some estimates go as
far as 100 years or more. Instead of
photosynthesis, chemosynthesis creates the basis of the food chain.
To read more about the Mariana Trench, click on some
of my research links below:
Growing
Food in Space
For researching how to grow food in an environment
lacking in sunlight and soil, I once again looked to NASA. I learned about how
hydroponics works and was amazed by it. It was not only a viable solution for
the Shark Station inhabitants, but also for people in general in both Oceania
and the Above World. Hydroponics works by using a bit of soil usually placed in
a soil pack, water, and an alternative light source such as an LED light. The
main problem with this method of growing food is the bacteria and fungus
problems it can create. A lot of specifics goes into how hydroponics works and
it gets quite detailed, so if you want to learn more about it from a better
resource than myself (aka NASA), click the below links.
Like with Allie’s Return, most of the rest of the
research focused on the marine animals featured in the novel, which you’ve
already read about in the three previous blog posts. If you missed them, you
can find them at the following links: part 1, part 2, and part 3.
I hope you enjoyed reading some of my research for the
novel and have been inspired to do some more of your own. If your interest has
been piqued, feel free to click any of the above links to learn more. If you
have any comments, you can leave them here on my blog or email me directly
at elizataye@gmail.com.
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