April 28, 2026 • 13 mins
Anney and Samantha dive into the numerous accomplishments of marine biologist and explorer Sylvia Earle.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Smantha and welcome to stuff
when I never told your production by heart radio.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And welcome to another activist around the world. And today
we are doing pretty much an insufficient episode, Like because
it is such a short episode, it's not going to
reach the amount of information that we have on this person,
because we were talking about a legend, an icon in
the oceanography world, in the marine biology world, in so
(00:42):
much we are talking about marine biologists, explorer, lecturer, and
writer Sylvia Earl. I think you can see Sylvia a Earl,
so like, you know, she's got that middle initial really important.
But she is a giant among giant when it comes
to ocean exploration and ocean conservation. Like when we talk
(01:06):
about her, there are books that she has written, books
upon books on the books that we should be reading
and really taking note of. But yes, this is not
exactly like sad, But what I'm thinking is like, yeah,
we probably should dedicate the whole episode to her and
her works because it's fascinating. But for today, because we
(01:29):
did want to end on a bang when it comes
to Environmental Awareness Month, we wanted to bring her in
just so that if you've never heard of her, you
could start doing your own research. Okay, that's what we're
going to say. So she has been referred to just
got several titles, but one of the most fascinating ones
is her Deepness, which I thought was an interesting title
(01:52):
in part to her holding the record for the deepest
walk on the seafloor and for the longest time. So phenomenal,
and she was doing this untethered, by the way, that's
so cool, And that's just one of the cool That's
not the coolest thing. There's so many things. Any So,
her works have been widely celebrated and have greatly influenced
(02:12):
the exploration of the deep seas. In fact, she has
many first under her belt, including the first to be
named Hero of the Planet by Time magazine. Like she
was like, oh, we need this new award for the
person and the first woman chief scientist of the US
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. So she has this Year's
(02:34):
got a few more, by the way, and with her
legendary career, she talked about her childhood being a big
influence in her career path. Born and raised in New Jersey,
she talked about how she would collect tadpoles and fish
in the pond in her backyard, spending hours observing and
recording her data in her little journal. Later, she and
(02:55):
her family moved down to Florida nearly the Gulf of Mexico,
where she would begin her venture and studying the coastal
sea life. And if you go to see different interviews
with her, you see how she talks about how she
fell in love with the sand and the ocean, and
how the crystal blue waters and seeing these creatures and
being fascinated on how they lived and how to preserve them.
(03:15):
So it's a beautiful story. After graduating high school at
the age of sixteen, yeah, he's a smart y'all, she
went on to get her bodany degree at Florida State
University at the age of nineteen, moving on and getting
her masters in botany at Duke University. All the while
she's already gotten her certification as a scuba diver to
(03:36):
start her studies underwater. So she's like, you know what
I got this, let me go ahead and jump in here.
She would also go on to her doctoral work in
studying algae at Duke University, and I believe the number
of specimens that she was able to study in collecsus
like twenty thousand algae. Woh, yeah, she's been doing that work.
(03:56):
She's been doing that work. In an article written about
her works in the National Geographics, she talks about her
early studies of the ocean. She says, when I started
to explore the ocean in the nineteen fifties, I became
witnessed to its radical changes. In my time, I've seen
the loss of half of the ocean's life, both in
terms of numbers as well as diversity. Oh, that's so sad.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
That is sad.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
In a minute. And it was at the age of
sixteen that Earl made her first dive. Has broken records since,
adding another first to her legacy. She was the first
woman to explore the ocean beyond one thousand feet while
wearing a gym suit, Which is a quote from their
article A pressurized That diving system that eliminates the need
(04:44):
for decompression stops petrified of the ocean, by the way,
I can't imagine.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Wow, you know, I got really into both mountain class
and ocean diving.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Oh yes, I'm petrified. Not her, she had no fear.
Oh I am petrified it's scary, he thought, and she
did this so with the exploration. She describes the unique
beauty of the sea. In the National Geographic article, she says,
down there, it really comes into focus that fish is
different from that one and that one and that one.
(05:19):
I know, the ill who lives in that place. Exploration
and peeling back layers of the unknown has led me
to the conviction that we have to protect as much
of the natural fabric of life, land and sea as possible.
What a settlement. I'm like, she's seen all these things.
I also like, she's like, I know that ill, I
know this Sales is my friend. Yeah, and she's seen
(05:42):
quite a bit of the land and the sea. Earl
has led several expeditions and collected and wrote a lot
of data and a lot of books. Again from the
National Geographic Article. To date, Earl has led more than
one hundred ocean expeditions, logged over seven thousand hours underwater
off there, more than one hundred and ninety scientific papers,
and published thirteen books. And this was the article that
(06:05):
was written in twenty twenty five, so not even that
long ago. A lot of stuff. She's been doing, a
lot of things. She's been on many voyages and explorations,
including a six week voyage to the Indian Ocean, voyages
to the Galapagos Islands, the Chilean coast, the Bahamas, and
even been able to live in an underwater habitat. This
is the world, like, this is so cool. In fact,
(06:28):
in the seventies, due to the government not allowing men
and women to inhabit together, because they had this whole project,
she led an all women's team to live in the
Men and Sea project that allow for scientists to live
and study fifty feet underwater for two weeks, allowing them
to study and photograph marine life in those surroundings. So
she's lived any in the water, in this building, in
(06:53):
this habitat that they created so they can study it
with an all women team. Because she's like, oh, you
won't let me do this with men, go ahead and
made my own team. I loved everything about that, and
they were able to get a lot of information in
this type of study. I didn't look it up. I'm
wondering how many of those types of studies exist right now,
because that's it's like an obvious we should be doing this, Yeah,
(07:17):
like how far have we come? Yes, the seventies. It
was over fifty years ago, so surely anyway fascinating. I
love this, And there's actual pictures if you want to
go look them up of her doing this and living
in these areas. I'm like, what so cool? And she
(07:43):
would only continue to grow her works and studies throughout
the years. She collaborated with undersea photographer Al Gettings to
photograph battleship graveyards, followed great sperm Wells, and published her
own book in the nineteen eighties where she walked untethered
on the seaf so she literally had them take photos
of her doing this, which is amazing. From Women's hisstory
(08:08):
dot org, they write she worked with Gettings on her
nineteen eighty book Exploring the Deep Frontier that's the name
of the book, which told of her experience walking untethered
on the seafloor at a lower depth than any person
before or since. She wore a pressurized suit and was
carried to a depth of one thousand, two hundred and
fifty feet where she detached from the submersible and explored
(08:29):
the sea floor for two and a half hours. So
they actually captured this as she is doing record breaking
things could you imagine again that petrifies me. The seafloor.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
You've got some anxieties about the sea, the ocean.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
There's too many things I don't.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Know about is dark the ocean and not the sea
specifically the ocean.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Well, everything everything where I can't see the bottom anyway,
moving on. Later, she collaborated with Graham Hawks, who would
be her third husband, to start companies that designed and
built underwater vehicles to allow for scientists to work even
deeper in the seas. So from one Earth dot org.
By nineteen eighty five, the remarkable team at Deep Ocean Engineering,
(09:17):
which is the team she created with her husband, unveiled
their groundbreaking creation, the Deep Rover Research Submarine. The state
of the art vessel could reach depths of one thousand
meters or three thousand, three hundred feet, unraveling the mysteries
hidden within the oceans of thisy. So she did so much.
It wasn't just one small thing. She went beyond. And
(09:37):
I'd say one small thing like that, one thing is small,
it's not it's giant, but you know what I mean.
So in nineteen ninety Earl became the first woman to
be appointed the Chief Scientists of Natural Oceanography and Atmospheric Administration,
which quote was responsible for safeguarding the health of the
nation's waters. And this was from National Geographic And it
was during this time that she was able to use
(09:59):
her expertise to study the impact of oil spills on
the environment and was able to lead trips to research
the damages caused by the destruction of oil wells during
the ninety one Gulf Wars. I'm sure we're using all
of that information again today and every day. Hats off
to her for that type of work because she has
(10:20):
been doing it for years and has been a big
help in policies and conversations and preserving the environment and
the oceans and the seas. Since then, she's been able
to lead, fund and organize several expeditions, science equipment, valuable
research projects, and so much more, including founding Mission Blue,
which she started in two thousand and nine. And this
(10:43):
is what they write on their site Mission blue dot org.
They write, Mission Blue inspires action to explore and protect
the ocean. Led by the legendary oceanographer doctor Sylvia Earle,
Mission Blue is uniting a global coalition to inspire an
upwelling of public awareness access and support for a worldwide
network of marine protected areas HOPE spots. So she has
(11:06):
HOPE spots that they trademark to find areas that need
to be preserved and you know, keeping hope to keep
the oceans safeguard it. Yeah, we need to save the ocean. Obviously.
That's just a small bit of the accomplishments that she
(11:27):
has done. If you go and look up her Wikipedia page,
I think there's about It didn't count twenty to thirty
different accolades that are listed for her, starting in the
nineteen seventies, but these are some that I thought we
would point out. In nineteen ninety she was given Society
of Woman Geographers Gold Medal. Nineteen ninety eight, the UN
Global five hundred Laureate, and National Wildlife Federation Conservationists of
(11:50):
the Year. In two thousands, she was in the National
Women's Hall of Fame, as well as a Library of
Congress Living Legend and a Women Divers Hall Fame. Obviously,
in twenty twenty she was given a ship. Essentially, a
ship was named after her. So the Aurora Expeditions announced
their expeditionship Sylvia Earle, which you can go look up
(12:12):
and read about now and all the expeditions they go on,
and then in twenty twenty six she was given Legacy
shift Maker Award at Harvard Art Museums. And yeah, at
the age of ninety, she's still going strong with her
works and talking about conservation and talking about ocean preservation.
So she's done a huge amount of work. She is
a fascinating individual. I'm really upset that I didn't know
(12:35):
about her before now, to be honest, but she is
a living legend and you should definitely look up some
of the stuff that she has done as well as
her books, and she has a Netflix documentary that we
should probably be watching as well.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Our list continues to grow, which is a good problem
to have. Yes, a good problem to have, and yes,
this is an amazing story. Listeners, please let us know
if you have any sugation questions for who we should
feature on future episodes, or if any thoughts about this.
You can email us at hellot Stuffwhenever Told You dot com.
(13:10):
You can find us on Blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast,
or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff whe Never Told You.
We're also on YouTube. We have some merchandise to Cotton
Bureau and we have a book you can get wherever
you get your books. Special thanks today to producer Casey
for helping us out, and as always, thanks to executive
producer Maya, and thanks to you for listening. Stuff Never
(13:31):
Told You is production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check out the
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where you listen to
your favorite shows,
Hey, this is Annie and Smantha and welcome to stuff
when I never told your production by heart radio.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And welcome to another activist around the world. And today
we are doing pretty much an insufficient episode, Like because
it is such a short episode, it's not going to
reach the amount of information that we have on this person,
because we were talking about a legend, an icon in
the oceanography world, in the marine biology world, in so
(00:42):
much we are talking about marine biologists, explorer, lecturer, and
writer Sylvia Earl. I think you can see Sylvia a Earl,
so like, you know, she's got that middle initial really important.
But she is a giant among giant when it comes
to ocean exploration and ocean conservation. Like when we talk
(01:06):
about her, there are books that she has written, books
upon books on the books that we should be reading
and really taking note of. But yes, this is not
exactly like sad, But what I'm thinking is like, yeah,
we probably should dedicate the whole episode to her and
her works because it's fascinating. But for today, because we
(01:29):
did want to end on a bang when it comes
to Environmental Awareness Month, we wanted to bring her in
just so that if you've never heard of her, you
could start doing your own research. Okay, that's what we're
going to say. So she has been referred to just
got several titles, but one of the most fascinating ones
is her Deepness, which I thought was an interesting title
(01:52):
in part to her holding the record for the deepest
walk on the seafloor and for the longest time. So phenomenal,
and she was doing this untethered, by the way, that's
so cool, And that's just one of the cool That's
not the coolest thing. There's so many things. Any So,
her works have been widely celebrated and have greatly influenced
(02:12):
the exploration of the deep seas. In fact, she has
many first under her belt, including the first to be
named Hero of the Planet by Time magazine. Like she
was like, oh, we need this new award for the
person and the first woman chief scientist of the US
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. So she has this Year's
(02:34):
got a few more, by the way, and with her
legendary career, she talked about her childhood being a big
influence in her career path. Born and raised in New Jersey,
she talked about how she would collect tadpoles and fish
in the pond in her backyard, spending hours observing and
recording her data in her little journal. Later, she and
(02:55):
her family moved down to Florida nearly the Gulf of Mexico,
where she would begin her venture and studying the coastal
sea life. And if you go to see different interviews
with her, you see how she talks about how she
fell in love with the sand and the ocean, and
how the crystal blue waters and seeing these creatures and
being fascinated on how they lived and how to preserve them.
(03:15):
So it's a beautiful story. After graduating high school at
the age of sixteen, yeah, he's a smart y'all, she
went on to get her bodany degree at Florida State
University at the age of nineteen, moving on and getting
her masters in botany at Duke University. All the while
she's already gotten her certification as a scuba diver to
(03:36):
start her studies underwater. So she's like, you know what
I got this, let me go ahead and jump in here.
She would also go on to her doctoral work in
studying algae at Duke University, and I believe the number
of specimens that she was able to study in collecsus
like twenty thousand algae. Woh, yeah, she's been doing that work.
(03:56):
She's been doing that work. In an article written about
her works in the National Geographics, she talks about her
early studies of the ocean. She says, when I started
to explore the ocean in the nineteen fifties, I became
witnessed to its radical changes. In my time, I've seen
the loss of half of the ocean's life, both in
terms of numbers as well as diversity. Oh, that's so sad.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
That is sad.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
In a minute. And it was at the age of
sixteen that Earl made her first dive. Has broken records since,
adding another first to her legacy. She was the first
woman to explore the ocean beyond one thousand feet while
wearing a gym suit, Which is a quote from their
article A pressurized That diving system that eliminates the need
(04:44):
for decompression stops petrified of the ocean, by the way,
I can't imagine.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Wow, you know, I got really into both mountain class
and ocean diving.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Oh yes, I'm petrified. Not her, she had no fear.
Oh I am petrified it's scary, he thought, and she
did this so with the exploration. She describes the unique
beauty of the sea. In the National Geographic article, she says,
down there, it really comes into focus that fish is
different from that one and that one and that one.
(05:19):
I know, the ill who lives in that place. Exploration
and peeling back layers of the unknown has led me
to the conviction that we have to protect as much
of the natural fabric of life, land and sea as possible.
What a settlement. I'm like, she's seen all these things.
I also like, she's like, I know that ill, I
know this Sales is my friend. Yeah, and she's seen
(05:42):
quite a bit of the land and the sea. Earl
has led several expeditions and collected and wrote a lot
of data and a lot of books. Again from the
National Geographic Article. To date, Earl has led more than
one hundred ocean expeditions, logged over seven thousand hours underwater
off there, more than one hundred and ninety scientific papers,
and published thirteen books. And this was the article that
(06:05):
was written in twenty twenty five, so not even that
long ago. A lot of stuff. She's been doing, a
lot of things. She's been on many voyages and explorations,
including a six week voyage to the Indian Ocean, voyages
to the Galapagos Islands, the Chilean coast, the Bahamas, and
even been able to live in an underwater habitat. This
is the world, like, this is so cool. In fact,
(06:28):
in the seventies, due to the government not allowing men
and women to inhabit together, because they had this whole project,
she led an all women's team to live in the
Men and Sea project that allow for scientists to live
and study fifty feet underwater for two weeks, allowing them
to study and photograph marine life in those surroundings. So
she's lived any in the water, in this building, in
(06:53):
this habitat that they created so they can study it
with an all women team. Because she's like, oh, you
won't let me do this with men, go ahead and
made my own team. I loved everything about that, and
they were able to get a lot of information in
this type of study. I didn't look it up. I'm
wondering how many of those types of studies exist right now,
because that's it's like an obvious we should be doing this, Yeah,
(07:17):
like how far have we come? Yes, the seventies. It
was over fifty years ago, so surely anyway fascinating. I
love this, And there's actual pictures if you want to
go look them up of her doing this and living
in these areas. I'm like, what so cool? And she
(07:43):
would only continue to grow her works and studies throughout
the years. She collaborated with undersea photographer Al Gettings to
photograph battleship graveyards, followed great sperm Wells, and published her
own book in the nineteen eighties where she walked untethered
on the seaf so she literally had them take photos
of her doing this, which is amazing. From Women's hisstory
(08:08):
dot org, they write she worked with Gettings on her
nineteen eighty book Exploring the Deep Frontier that's the name
of the book, which told of her experience walking untethered
on the seafloor at a lower depth than any person
before or since. She wore a pressurized suit and was
carried to a depth of one thousand, two hundred and
fifty feet where she detached from the submersible and explored
(08:29):
the sea floor for two and a half hours. So
they actually captured this as she is doing record breaking
things could you imagine again that petrifies me. The seafloor.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
You've got some anxieties about the sea, the ocean.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
There's too many things I don't.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Know about is dark the ocean and not the sea
specifically the ocean.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Well, everything everything where I can't see the bottom anyway,
moving on. Later, she collaborated with Graham Hawks, who would
be her third husband, to start companies that designed and
built underwater vehicles to allow for scientists to work even
deeper in the seas. So from one Earth dot org.
By nineteen eighty five, the remarkable team at Deep Ocean Engineering,
(09:17):
which is the team she created with her husband, unveiled
their groundbreaking creation, the Deep Rover Research Submarine. The state
of the art vessel could reach depths of one thousand
meters or three thousand, three hundred feet, unraveling the mysteries
hidden within the oceans of thisy. So she did so much.
It wasn't just one small thing. She went beyond. And
(09:37):
I'd say one small thing like that, one thing is small,
it's not it's giant, but you know what I mean.
So in nineteen ninety Earl became the first woman to
be appointed the Chief Scientists of Natural Oceanography and Atmospheric Administration,
which quote was responsible for safeguarding the health of the
nation's waters. And this was from National Geographic And it
was during this time that she was able to use
(09:59):
her expertise to study the impact of oil spills on
the environment and was able to lead trips to research
the damages caused by the destruction of oil wells during
the ninety one Gulf Wars. I'm sure we're using all
of that information again today and every day. Hats off
to her for that type of work because she has
(10:20):
been doing it for years and has been a big
help in policies and conversations and preserving the environment and
the oceans and the seas. Since then, she's been able
to lead, fund and organize several expeditions, science equipment, valuable
research projects, and so much more, including founding Mission Blue,
which she started in two thousand and nine. And this
(10:43):
is what they write on their site Mission blue dot org.
They write, Mission Blue inspires action to explore and protect
the ocean. Led by the legendary oceanographer doctor Sylvia Earle,
Mission Blue is uniting a global coalition to inspire an
upwelling of public awareness access and support for a worldwide
network of marine protected areas HOPE spots. So she has
(11:06):
HOPE spots that they trademark to find areas that need
to be preserved and you know, keeping hope to keep
the oceans safeguard it. Yeah, we need to save the ocean. Obviously.
That's just a small bit of the accomplishments that she
(11:27):
has done. If you go and look up her Wikipedia page,
I think there's about It didn't count twenty to thirty
different accolades that are listed for her, starting in the
nineteen seventies, but these are some that I thought we
would point out. In nineteen ninety she was given Society
of Woman Geographers Gold Medal. Nineteen ninety eight, the UN
Global five hundred Laureate, and National Wildlife Federation Conservationists of
(11:50):
the Year. In two thousands, she was in the National
Women's Hall of Fame, as well as a Library of
Congress Living Legend and a Women Divers Hall Fame. Obviously,
in twenty twenty she was given a ship. Essentially, a
ship was named after her. So the Aurora Expeditions announced
their expeditionship Sylvia Earle, which you can go look up
(12:12):
and read about now and all the expeditions they go on,
and then in twenty twenty six she was given Legacy
shift Maker Award at Harvard Art Museums. And yeah, at
the age of ninety, she's still going strong with her
works and talking about conservation and talking about ocean preservation.
So she's done a huge amount of work. She is
a fascinating individual. I'm really upset that I didn't know
(12:35):
about her before now, to be honest, but she is
a living legend and you should definitely look up some
of the stuff that she has done as well as
her books, and she has a Netflix documentary that we
should probably be watching as well.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Our list continues to grow, which is a good problem
to have. Yes, a good problem to have, and yes,
this is an amazing story. Listeners, please let us know
if you have any sugation questions for who we should
feature on future episodes, or if any thoughts about this.
You can email us at hellot Stuffwhenever Told You dot com.
(13:10):
You can find us on Blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast,
or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff whe Never Told You.
We're also on YouTube. We have some merchandise to Cotton
Bureau and we have a book you can get wherever
you get your books. Special thanks today to producer Casey
for helping us out, and as always, thanks to executive
producer Maya, and thanks to you for listening. Stuff Never
(13:31):
Told You is production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check out the
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where you listen to
your favorite shows,
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.