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The
San Francisco Chronicle published David Perlman’s exclusive
stories about the Galápagos vent discoveries in 1977.
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David
Perlman, science editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, is one of
the world’s most respected science journalists. In 1997, the
American Geophysical Union gave him its Award for Sustained Achievement
in Science Journalism. In 2000, the AGU established a new award
in his honor: the David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science
Journalism. (Courtesy of San Francisco Chronicle)
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A scientific “scoop”
Unlike the Apollo flight to the moon, the extraordinary Galápagos Hydrothermal Expedition was not watched by millions. Only one newspaper reporter was aboard—David Perlman of the San Francisco Chronicle. He had a science journalist’s dream. He “scooped” everyone else by publishing a series of exclusive stories on a scientific discovery that changed the world.
“I had my trusty Olivetti (portable typewriter) along with me—yesterday's version of a laptop!” Perlman said. “So I typed my pieces, and the Knorr radio operator used a Xerox telecopier scan and transmitted each one on the days I wrote via the ship’s single-sideband radio to Woods Hole, where the obliging PR folk generously forwarded them on to The Chronicle—via Western Union, if I recall correctly.”
In one of his stories, published on March 9, 1977, Perlman wrote this about of the expedition’s scientists:
“They have pinpointed geysers of hot water venting from fissures in fresh lava and sending warm plumes of brine shimmering upward into the near-freezing lower levels of the sea.
“They have found rich clusters of living organisms, basking in the warmth of the geysers…
“They have discovered fresh lava that was poured out onto the sea bottom in ropes and wrinkles, sheet-like pavements and bulbous pillows—squeezed or erupted from the hot, semi-molten material of the deep earth’s interior mantle beneath the crust.
“When these findings are all analyzed in detail they are bound to ‘revolutionize’ many theories about the deep ocean floor.”
The headline for this article was “Astounding Undersea Discoveries.” Newspaper headlines can sometimes be sensational. This headline certainly was—but it was also absolutely true.
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