Sylvia Earle comes to Beneath the Sea

Sylvia Earle’s celebration began many years ago when, in 1955, this New Jersey girl took her B.S. degree in hand and headed out into the world of oceanography. Sylvia specialized in botany, believing that understanding the vegetation is the first step to understanding the ecosystem. She had her M.S. by 1956 and her Ph D in ’66. In there somewhere she learned to scuba dive and when combined with her lab savvy she knew she could use this, then new, technology to study marine life first hand.

Following her Ph D Sylvia married, had three children, traveled, while four-months pregnant, to a hundred feet below the waters of the Bahamas in the submersible Deep Diver, and later left for six weeks in the Indian Ocean with a National Science Foundation expedition. That’s how she spent the 60’s juggling home, children and scientific expeditions that took her around the world.

Then Harvard wanted her as a Research Fellow; then the Cape Haze Marine Lab wanted her as Resident Director; by 1970 she led the first all-female research expedition that would live for two weeks fifty-feet under the water in Tektite II. The publicity surrounding Tektite II made Sylvia a recognizable face beyond the scientific community, and she became increasingly in demand as a public speaker. At that time she also began to write for National Geographic and to produce books and films in an effort to arouse public awareness of our aqua sphere.

The 1970’s saw Sylvia traveling around the world on countless scientific missions: Galapagos, China, Bahamas, and the Indian Ocean again, and a graveyard of battleships in the Caroline Islands in the South Pacific.

1977 she was off chasing great sperm whales following these behemoths from Hawaii to New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Bermuda and Alaska. The result of those three years of work was “Gentle Giants of the Pacific.”

1979, Sylvia Earle walks unteathered on the sea floor at a depth lower than any other human being has ever been before … or since. In a Jim suit, a one-atmosphere pressurized garment, she was taken by submersible to 1,250 feet below the ocean’s surface off the Hawaiian island of Oahu. At the bottom, Sylvia detaches herself from the vessel and explored the depth for the next two-and-a-half hours with only a communication line connecting her to the sub, and nothing connecting her to the worlds above. Then she wrote about her adventure in her 1980 book: “Exploring the Deep Frontier.”

In the 1980’s Sylvia started two companies: Deep Ocean Engineering and Deep Ocean Technologies. These companies design and build undersea vehicles like the Deep Rover and Deep Flight making it possible for scientists to reach and work at depths too precarious for previously existing technology.

In the 1990’s Sylvia Earle took a leave of absence from her companies to serve as Chief Scientist of the National Oceanographic and Atmosphere Administration.

Today finds Sylvia explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society. To date she has led more than fifty worldwide expeditions spending an excess of 6500 hours underwater in connection with her research. She has authored more than one-hundred publications concerning marine science and technology, participated in numerous television productions, and has lectured in over sixty countries on scientific, technical and general interest subjects related to the oceans.

Sylvia Earle, in addition to being Beneath the Sea’s and the Historical Diving Society’s Legend of the Sea for 2008, is also: Honorary President of the Explorer’s Club, a Wyland Icon Lifetime Achievement Award winner, 1996 Explorer’s Club Medal winner, 1991 DEMA Hall of Fame Award winner, she holds the Explorers Club Lowell Thomas Award, and is a member of The Women Diver’s Hall of Fame, amongst a proud array of other medals, and honorary degrees.

Beneath the Sea and the Historical Diving Society is honored to have Dr. Sylvia Earle as their 2008 Legend of the Sea.