Indo-Asian News Service
A fungus that can make detergents more effective, a nanobacteria that can hold the key to understanding formation of the earth, a 60 million-year-old chunk of rock that can make India rich- Indian scientists are plumbing the depths of oceans like never before, unearthing secrets of the earth, and the sea, in their quest for unravelling the past and bettering the future.
Marine biologist Kottekkadu Krishnan, for instance, at the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR) in India's coastal state Goa is intrigued by the extremely tiny bacteria (nanobacteria) he found in an ice core sample he brought from Antarctica. He thinks, but not everyone agrees, that the strange organisms were originally residents of the earth's mantle that were ejected during volcanic eruptions and transported to Antarctica by the ash and got trapped in ice.
At National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Chandralata Raghukumar is thrilled by her discovery of a fungus from the bottom of central Indian Ocean. The fungus Aspergillus ustus produces an enzyme that works efficiently at low temperatures. "German and US detergent manufacturers are testing our patented enzyme (US patent 2005101002) as possible additive to their products for washing clothes in cold instead of hot water," she says.
But it is the trophy that NIO's Virupaxa Banakar scooped from an undersea mount that has excited the authorities. It is a chunk of rock covered with a seven cm thick crust that Banakar says must have taken over 60 million years to form. Analysis showed these crusts contain cobalt and platinum - both precious.
India has already started work on third base in Antarctica. The expedition to the Arctic has signalled India's foray into the northern hemisphere. India will soon be adding a brand new ship to its research fleet and a manned submersible for underwater research. With help from Russia, India is already building a robotic vehicle that can dive up to 6,000 metres. The first prototype was tested successfully at a depth of 205 metres in October 2006.
India has decided to join the Integrated Ocean Drilling Programme (IODP) as an associate member paying $1 million as annual fee. China and Korea are the only other associate members of IODP sponsored by the United States, Japan and a 17-member European consortium. Through this programme, India intends to initiate deep drilling in the Arabian Sea, the western Andamans and in the Bay of Bengal.
India's interest in the ocean is as much economic as it is scientific. As one of the seven pioneer investors in undersea mining, it has been allotted a 75,000 sq km area of seabed in the central Indian Ocean - strewn with manganese nodules that contain copper, nickel and cobalt. India would like to mine these someday.
Meanwhile the ministry's attention has been drawn to Banakar's discovery of cobalt crusts because they are available in shallow water as slabs capping the seamounts whereas nodules occur on seabed at abysmal depths of four km or more.
The government says the manned submersible that it intends to procure will help in the exploration of cobalt crusts and also hydrothermal sulphides and gas hydrates - a source of methane, which can be used as a fuel.
But, as noted by the leading science journal Nature, India's grandiose schemes in marine research may potentially be thwarted by the creeping manpower shortage as only four or five universities in India teach oceanography. However, Satish Ramnath Shetye, director of NIO, is confident that with more funding - India will be spending $100 million on oceanographic research this year - and challenging research programmes, the trend will reverse.