“Abysses. A diary from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean” is a Radio3 Rai 8-episode podcast series, written and told by Francesca Buoninconti and Donato Giovannelli. Original music composed by Riccardo Amorese. Sound design by Alfredo Morana. Executive producer Marco Motta.

Donato Giovannelli is a microbiologist at the University of Naples Federico II, he works on extremophiles, like bacteria or other microorganisms that love living in extreme conditions, like high temperature water, high pressure… He spends 3-4 months per year  around the world - from Svalbard islands in the north pole to Antarctica, from the highest volcanic mountains in Argentina to the depth of the Pacific ocean, along the east Pacific rise, searching for extremophiles. 

He won a European research council grant for his project CoEvolve, to study how life coevolved with geology, and how geology coevolved with life along the last 4 billions years. When we met him, in november 2022, he was leaving for a mission to search for extremophiles at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, 2500 meter depth, on the East Pacific Rise, aboard Alvin (a deep ocean research submersible owned by the United States Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) . So we asked him to bring a recorder with himself and make an audio diary of this incredible scientific and human exploration of Life in the deep Ocean.

6th episode description: 
The red turret of the Alvin submarine disappears into the waves. Donato Giovannelli begins his descent into the depths: in just over an hour and a quarter, the Alvin will reach a depth of 2500 meters. Meanwhile, the view from the porthole changes rapidly: the sunlight disappears, bioluminescent "rain" appears, then... a total darkness. And finally, when the Alvin turns on its lights, there is the oceanic ridge of the Pacific Ocean: the point where new Earth crust is born. 
Here, the seabed looks like an alien landscape: a stretch of shiny black basalt resembling glass, giving way to black smokers that spew black "smoke." All around, there are forests of giant worms and animals of thousand extravagant forms. Down there, with the lights on, the Alvin resembles a spaceship: inside, Donato Giovannelli and the pilot Bruce maneuver the vehicle and its arms to collect rock and fluid samples and deploy sensors and experiments.

ABYSSES. A DIARY FROM THE DEPTH OF PACIFIC OCEAN - EP. 6

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