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Tall like trees, short like shrubs, and sponges and various animals underneath, isn't this a garden? The garden made up of animals in the dark world is amazing, so mysterious! ”
Four years ago, the 82-year-old Academician Wang dived to the bottom of the sea floor at a depth of 1400 meters on the "Deep Sea Warrior" deep submersible, wanting to observe the biota at the mouth of the cold spring, but found a deep-sea coral group, encountered a magical "deep-sea garden", and unveiled the mystery of the earth's "dark world".
The grandeur seen by scientists will be recreated in front of the public. The mainland's first deep-sea themed comprehensive original temporary exhibition is here! It has the world's largest cold-water coral forest restoration scene, dozens of rare specimens from thousands of meters deep in the sea... Since December 3, this "Deep Sea Garden" exhibition jointly created by the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum and Tongji University has been unveiled at the Shanghai Natural History Museum.
There is dark matter and dark energy in the universe, and there is a "dark world" on Earth. In the deep sea, there will be no sunlight, it is an eternal darkness. Scientists dive into the deep sea. What did they see there? What was found?
In the exhibition hall, through the darkness, the natural beauty that only scientists could see jumped into view. It turns out that there is also unexpected natural beauty in the dark world of the deep sea, and there is such a rich poetic meaning.
The exhibition is divided into five sections: "Imagination by the Sea", "Chasing Dreams of the Deep Sea", "Dark Wonderland", "Mystery of the Sea", and "Exploring the Infinite".
"Imagination by the Sea" takes the myths and legends of the sea as the starting point, telling the story of people's desire to face the ocean from fear to hope to explore;
"Chasing Dreams of the Deep Sea" shows the historical leap from submersion to the deep sea;
"Dark Wonderland" focuses on the coral forest in the deep sea, a deep-sea autotrophic "garden" comparable to a terrestrial garden, in this ecosystem, various corals are staggered in height and low, providing a habitat for many animals, and is a wonderful scenery in the dark world;
Based on the latest research results on the deep sea, "Mystery of the Seabed" guides the audience to understand coral forests and hydrothermal cold spring creatures from the perspective of researchers.
"Explore Infinity" lets the audience understand through questions that human beings still have little understanding of the deep sea, and we need to work together to understand the deep sea, understand the deep sea, and explore the deep sea.
The highlight of the exhibition is the 400-square-meter deep-sea scene, which integrates three ecosystems: cold-water coral, hydrothermal and cold-wist.
Through 3D modeling and printing technology to make 80 cold-water coral models, restore the natural growth state of 14 kinds of corals such as bamboo coral, fan coral, gorgonian coral, the largest of which is nearly 2 meters high, plus 60 miniature models of tubular worms and the application of 28 square meters of large-scale multimedia projection, so that the near and far scenes complement each other, creating an immersive visual feast for the audience.
The exhibition selects more than 30 cold-water coral specimens from five families, most of which were collected by Chinese scientists in the South China Sea in 2020 aboard the "Deep Sea Warrior". Among them, 23 cold-water coral specimens were presented to the audience for the first time.
The collection of 12 specimens of 8 shallow-water corals is exhibited in the same area as cold-water corals.
The deep-sea hydrothermal zone displays rocks and their rock slices from hydrothermal vents from the mid-eastern Pacific Ocean ridge, as well as valuable tubular worm specimens and other shellfish specimens;
The deep-sea cold spring area highlights rocks and their biological specimens collected by the research ships "Sun" and "Ocean IV" and the unmanned deep submersible ROV "Science" from the cold spring area of the mainland South China Sea, including very complete deep-sea diving armored shrimp, shellfish, cold-water corals and autogenic carbonate rocks.
There is also a model of the "Deep Sea Warrior" from the China Ship Science Research Center, which leads everyone to understand the technological development of ocean exploration.
In addition, the exhibition team introduced the concept of "meta-universe" and built a cloud exhibition hall, committed to making the exhibition cross physical space, break the limitations of time, and create a new immersive virtual experience.
Visitors can scan the QR code to tour the virtual exhibition hall anytime, anywhere, and can also participate in the supporting online educational activities "Light up the Coral Lantern" and "Warriors in Wonderland" deep-sea mini-games. Online visitors can also appreciate the style of the deep sea and explore the mysteries of the deep sea through these cutting-edge technical means.
At the opening ceremony of today's exhibition, a specimen donation ceremony for deep-sea corals was also held. This 1.7-meter-long specimen of bamboo gorgonian donated by Tongji University was personally collected by Academician Wang when he dived into the deep sea, hoping that it could be better protected in the museum and let more people see the "deep sea".
In May 2018, Academician Wang Pinxian dived into the deep sea originally to see the cold spring biota, but saw traces of corals, "I asked the driver to hurry up and chase the corals, and the result was really chased, very excited!" ”
At that time, they wanted to collect some specimens and came back, and they looked at the longest one, about 5 meters above the seabed. "I told the driver that when we went back and didn't do anything else, two manipulators pulled this coral off and dragged it."
It turned out to be a pity, halfway through, it broke, and everything on it fell off.
"So, I say, coral is a 'beauty' in the water, but it becomes a 'skeleton' on land."
"Deep-water corals are too small in the deep sea, let's say 2,000 meters deep sea, what is 2,000 meters? It is two Nanjing Road pedestrian streets, you erect it so far that ordinary people can't see it, they can only see it when they dive to the bottom of the sea. ”
Therefore, even if the coral on the shore is far from the "beauty" of the seabed, such specimens are still very rare, and "it can be well displayed in the natural museum, which is also a big gain for us." ”