Diving Deep for a Living Fossil
반복 청취후 발음이 숙달되면, 끄고 큰소리로 본문을 읽어 보세요.
Diving Deep for a Living Fossil
For 33 years, Peter A. Rona has pursued an ancient, elusive animal, repeatedly plunging down more than two miles to the muddy seabed of the North Atlantic to search out, and if possible, pry loose his quarry.
Like Ahab, he has failed time and again. Despite access to the world's best equipment for deep exploration, he has always come back empty-handed, the creature eluding his grip.
The animal is no white whale. And Dr. Rona is no unhinged Captain Ahab, but rather a distinguished oceanographer at Rutgers University. And he has now succeeded in making an intellectual splash with a new research report, written with a team of a dozen colleagues.
They have gathered enough evidence to prove that his scientific prey - an organism a bit larger than a poker chip - represents one of the world's oldest living fossils, perhaps the oldest. The ancestors of the creature, Paleodictyon nodosum, go back to the dawn of complex life. And the creature itself, known from fossils, was once thought to have gone extinct some 50 million years ago.
Has the long pursuit frustrated him? "No," Dr. Rona replied as he displayed traces of the animal in sedimentary rocks some 50 million years old. "It's science. It's detective work. It's about racking up one clue after another."
Still, in an interview at Rutgers, Dr. Rona said he looked forward to eventually capturing one of the creatures alive. "I think it's likely," he said, "if we can do the dives." Dr. Rona, an authority on the deep sea, likes nothing better than to cram himself into a tiny submersible and fall into the abyss.
It takes more than two hours to descend to the creature's abode, which lies more than two miles down. The environmental stability of that world - including its crushing pressures and icy darkness - means that some of its most famous inhabitants have survived for eons as evolutionary throwbacks, their bodies undergoing little change. For instance, sea lilies, marine animals with feathery arms, date back more than 400 million years.
본문에 나오는 주요 단어와 발음청취
living fossil
명. 생명체 잔흔이 남아 있는 화석
elusive
형. 파악하기 어려운, 이해하기 어려운; 피하는, 회피하는
pry loose
동. 무거운 물체에서 부터 제거하다, 구해내다, 해방하다
quarry
명. 채석장; 사냥감; 사냥된 동물들; 창유리
unhinge
동. 돌쩌귀를 떼다; 활짝 열다; 혼란케 하다; 분리하다, 떼어내다
oceanographer
명. 해양생물학자
prey
동. 사냥하여 먹다, 잡아 먹다; 약탈하다, 희생시키다
extinct
형. 꺼진, 단절된; 사라진, 소멸한
sedimentary
형. 침전물에 의한, 침전물을 포함한
cram
동. 밀어넣다, 다져 넣다, 채워 넣다; 게걸스럽게 먹다; 강도높게 공부하다;
submersible
명. 잠수함, 해양탐사를 위한 작은 잠수체
abyss
명. 심연, 심; 심오한 것; 헤아릴 수 없이 깊은 틈이나 공간; 지옥, 나락
abode
명. 주소, 거처; 한 곳에서 장기간 체류
eon
명. 영겁, 나이, 연령, 연세; 수명; 세대; 시대
throwback
명. 되던짐; 후퇴; (생물) 격세 유전
feathery
형. 깃털처럼 가벼운, 부드러운; 깃털로 덮힌
