Deep sea mining opponents suffer major setback
Opponents of deep sea mining suffered a serious setback Friday when they failed to take a first step toward an international moratorium on the controversial practice.
Opponents of deep sea mining suffered a serious setback Friday when they failed to take a first step toward an international moratorium on the controversial practice.
Environment
Aug 3, 2024
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A new study has revealed that changes in the ocean floor impact currents, giving new insight into the deep-sea pathways of nutrients and pollutants.
Earth Sciences
Jul 31, 2024
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A small but ferocious predator, the male dragonfish will apparently do anything for love. Or at least to find a mate. A study by researchers at Boston College found that the eyes of the male dragonfish grow larger for mate-seeking ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 23, 2024
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The bottom of the ocean is not hospitable. There is no light; the temperature is freezing cold; and the pressure of all the water above will literally crush you. The animals that live at this depth have developed biophysical ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 27, 2024
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As diplomats from around the world convene in Jamaica next month to discuss international guidelines on deep sea mining, environmental activists are urging nations to consider a California law they say could mitigate the ...
Environment
Jun 27, 2024
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Members of the vertebrate group including anglerfish are unique in possessing a characteristic known as sexual parasitism, in which males temporarily attach or permanently fuse with females to mate. Now, researchers reporting ...
Evolution
May 23, 2024
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"Dust clouds" at the bottom of the deep sea, that will be created by deep-sea mining activities, descend at a short distance for the most part. That is shown by Ph.D. research of NIOZ marine geologist Sabine Haalboom, on ...
Earth Sciences
May 15, 2024
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The "Blob," a significant marine heat wave in the Northeast Pacific Ocean from 2013 to 2016, had profound effects on climate and marine ecosystems. Predicting such events is challenging due to the complexity of ocean–atmosphere ...
Earth Sciences
May 13, 2024
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Scientists have discovered bioluminescence is actually pretty common among deep-sea shrimp, with a new study identifying 157 species that are believed to possess the ability to emit light. Some do it by vomiting luminous ...
Plants & Animals
May 10, 2024
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Many animals can glow in the dark. Fireflies famously blink on summer evenings. But most animals that light up are found in the depths of the ocean.
Plants & Animals
Apr 27, 2024
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The deep sea, or deep layer, is the lowest layer in the ocean, existing below the thermocline, at a depth of 1000 fathoms (1828 m) or more. Little or no light penetrates this area of the ocean, and most of its organisms rely on falling organic matter produced in the photic zone for subsistence. For this reason scientists assumed life would be sparse in the deep ocean, but virtually every probe has revealed that, on the contrary, life is abundant in the deep ocean.
From the time of Pliny until the expedition in the ship Challenger between 1872 and 1876 to prove Pliny wrong; its deep-sea dredges and trawls brought up living things from all depths that could be reached. Perhaps one day man will be more like aqua man, and roam the ocean depths with the fish creatures alike. Yet even in the twentieth century scientists continued to imagine that life at great depth was insubstantial, or somehow inconsequential. The eternal dark, the almost inconceivable pressure, and the extreme cold that exist below one thousand meters were, they thought, so forbidding as to have all but extinguished life. The reverse is in fact true....(Below 200 meters) lies the largest habitat on earth.
In 1960 the Bathyscaphe Trieste descended to the bottom of the Marianas Trench near Guam, at 35,798 feet (10,911 meters), the deepest spot on earth. If Mount Everest were submerged there, its peak would be more than a mile beneath the surface. At this great depth a small flounder-like fish was seen moving away from the bathyscaphe's spotlight. The Japanese research submersible Kaiko was the only vessel capable of reaching this depth, and it was lost in 2003.
We know more about the moon than the deepest parts of the ocean. Until the late 1970s little was known about the possibility of life on the deep ocean floor but the the discovery of thriving colonies of shrimp and other organisms around hydrothermal vents changed that. Before the discovery of the undersea vents, all life was thought to be driven by the sun. But these organisms get their nutrients from the earth's mineral deposits directly. These organisms thrive in completely lightless and anaerobic environments, in highly saline water that may reach 300 °F (149 °C), drawing their sustainance from hydrogen sulfide, which is highly toxic to all terrestrial life. The revolutionary discovery that life can exist without oxygen or light significantly increases the chance of there being life elsewhere in the universe. Scientists now speculate that Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, may have conditions that could support life beneath its surface which is speculated to be a liquid ocean beneath the icy crust.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA