Source: The Guardian
Author: Laura Trethewey
On a wall facing Vicki Ferrini’s desk hangs a giant map of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. At 6ft by 8ft, it’s the largest size available on the printer at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, where she works as a geoinformatics researcher. “I of course want it even bigger,” she says.
Continue reading here.
Source: ScienceDaily
Explosive volcanic eruptions are possible deep down in the sea — although the water masses exert enormous pressure there. An international team reports in the journal Nature Geoscience how this can happen.
Author: Dharna Noor
Source: Gizmodo Earther
In the depths of the water just west of Greenland, scientists have discovered a previously unknown coral garden. They described the ecosystem in a new study published in Frontiers in Marine Science on Monday.
Continue reading Scientists Found a Vast, Deep Sea Coral Garden off Greenland’s Coast
Source: New York Times
Author: William J Broad
What lies off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, in the Coral Sea? The region was mostly unexplored and uncharted until a recent expedition searched its dark waters, uncovering an abundance of life, weird geologic features and spectacular deep corals. The deepest forays reached down more than a mile.
Author: Helen Reid
Source: Financial Post
Mining on the sea floor should not begin before a full assessment of likely environmental impacts can be made, a report commissioned by the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (Ocean Panel) said on Wednesday.
Continue reading Deep sea mining could destroy undiscovered species, says Ocean Panel
Source: WNYC STUDIOS
In 2007, Bruce Robison’s robot submarine stumbled across an octopus settling in to brood her eggs. It seemed like a small moment. But as he went back to visit her, month after month, what began as a simple act of motherhood became a heroic feat that has never been equaled by any known species on Earth.
Listen to a new Radiolab podcast: Octomom – reported and produced by Annie McEwen.
Source: RNZ
Throughout the course of her career marine biologist Dr. Amanda Vincent has studied seahorse in 38 countries and co-authored a definitive taxonomy that helps distinguish between the 40 or so species.
Continue reading LISTEN: Underwater trailblazer – top seahorse expert talks bottom trawling in NZ
Source: Geographical
Author: Sabine Christiansen and Sebastian Unger
You may have heard about minerals on the bottom of the ocean. The UK Government sponsors several exploration contracts for UK Seabed Resources (a subsidiary of the American aerospace and security company Lockheed-Martin) in the Pacific Ocean to look for them. These minerals come from the so-called ‘Area’, the deep seafloor beyond the limits of national jurisdiction and far out in the global ocean.
Continue reading Deep seabed mining could inflict considerable direct and indirect harm
Source: Phys.org
Living in an essentially zero-gravity environment, many deep-sea animals have evolved soft, gelatinous bodies and collect food using elaborate mucus filters. Until now, studying these delicate structures has been virtually impossible. A new study published in the journal Nature describes a unique laser-based system for constructing 3-D models of diaphanous marine animals and the mucus structures they secrete.
Continue reading here.
This session was hosted as part of the 2020 Virtual Ocean Dialogues by the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Pacific Network on Globalisation.
The ocean is a constant for people of the Pacific, with cultures centred around long-held relationships that remain embedded in everyday life. Knowledge, guardianship and traditional resource management systems enable the bounty of a healthy ocean to perpetually sustain physical, economic and spiritual well-being.
The impending industry of deep seabed mining has focused its attention on the Pacific region both on the high seas through the International Seabed Authority and within national jurisdictions, where proposals to date have been shown to be at odds not only with cultural beliefs and practices of Pacific societies, but also with contemporary marine legislation, economic and cultural activities such as fisheries and tourism, and the commitments of all countries to reverse the decline in biodiversity. The outcomes and stories of civil society engagement with prolonged seabed mining licensing processes lay bare the question of appropriateness of the activity in the 21st century.
In this Virtual Ocean Dialogue session, stories from frontline indigenous leaders offered a Pacific people’s perspective on the “sustainable relationship” with the life-giving entity, Moana nui. Experts also explored the interconnectedness of deep-sea environments and the rights of both human societies and nature in the context of exploiting the global commons.
