To this day, the attraction of the sea remains unbroken, and only a fraction of the deep sea has been explored. The fascination for the oceans is driving their exploration just as much as the increasing demand for raw materials.

With his novel "20,000 Leagues Under the Seas", Jules Verne has already brought the underwater world closer to many generations and given rise to visions. Bettina Wurche reads from his work and contrasts the descriptions with current developments in the use of the oceans. How much science was in the fiction back then? What raw materials actually exist? The lecture invites to discuss the framework conditions of raw material extraction in the oceans: Who owns the resources? What are the rights and obligations? What consequences can and will the use of the resources have? Exhibits from our exhibition make the different raw materials understandable.  

Speaker Bettina Wurche

Bettina Wurche holds a degree in biology and science journalism and studied in Hamburg with a focus on marine biology. As part of her text agency "Meertext", she writes primarily for popular science media such as Spektrum der Wissenschaft and Bild der Wissenschaft, but also for publications by research institutions and museums.

Copyright: AI-generated picture with DALL-E