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posted by martyb on Friday July 29 2016, @10:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-a-life-and-depths-decision dept.

In a study published in Scientific Reports, scientists discovered impressive abundance and diversity among the creatures living on the seafloor in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ)—an area in the equatorial Pacific Ocean being targeted for deep-sea mining. The study, lead authored by Diva Amon, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), found that more than half of the species they collected were new to science, reiterating how little is known about life on the seafloor in this region.

"We found that this exploration claim area harbors one of the most diverse communities of megafauna [animals over 2 cm in size] to be recorded at abyssal depths in the deep sea," said Amon.

The deep sea is where the next frontier of mining will take place. A combination of biological, chemical and geological processes has led to the formation of high concentrations of polymetallic "manganese" nodules on the deep seafloor in the CCZ—an area nearly the size of the contiguous United States. These nodules are potentially valuable sources of copper, nickel, cobalt and manganese, among other metals, which has led to an interest in mining this region. All of the potential polymetallic-nodule exploration contracts that have been granted in the Pacific are in this region, according to the International Seabed Authority.

[...] The preliminary data from these surveys showed that more animals live on the seafloor in areas with higher nodule abundance. Further, the majority of the megafaunal diversity also appears to be dependent on the polymetallic nodules themselves, and thus are likely to be negatively affected by mining impacts.

"The biggest surprises of this study were the high diversity, the large numbers of new species and the fact that more than half of the species seen rely on the nodules—the very part of the habitat that will be removed during the mining process," said Amon.

Exploitation plans are pushing ahead even though knowledge of the seafloor ecosystem in this region is still limited.


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  • (Score: 3, Flamebait) by Dunbal on Friday July 29 2016, @10:31PM

    by Dunbal (3515) on Friday July 29 2016, @10:31PM (#381778)

    Think of that especially rare and delicate ecosystem on the bottom of the ocean floor that I never heard of until yesterday, says the guy with 7 kids. Food for thought. The REASON we are stripping all the resources in sight is because we need them. You want to fix the problem put the baby machine away or at least turn it to "LO".

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday July 29 2016, @10:48PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday July 29 2016, @10:48PM (#381782) Journal

      A post-doc with 7 kids? Yeah fucking right.

      What nation governs this part of the sea and can regulate the exploitation of these natural resources?

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      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Gravis on Saturday July 30 2016, @01:29AM

      by Gravis (4596) on Saturday July 30 2016, @01:29AM (#381830)

      The REASON we are stripping all the resources in sight is because we need them.

      Which elements exactly are completely unobtainable at a reasonable price? "The REASON we are stripping all the resources in sight" is because they are easy to profit from. The truth is we don't need to go to the sea floor to get elements, we have plenty of them already in places we know. The reason they are extracting them is because of existing environmental regulations greatly reduces the profitability of extracting them. In short, this is an end run around regulations that exist to protect us from people who would otherwise destroy the environment to make a buck.

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 30 2016, @01:41AM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 30 2016, @01:41AM (#381833) Journal

        I think you nailed it, Gravis.

        Why are businesses moving to China and/or third world countries? Partly because labor is so cheap, but also because there are few if any environmental regulations in those countries.

        I submitted an article about China paying chemical industries to relocate away from Beijing - looks like that one will hit the front page later tonight.

        Corporations don't care about pollution. If they can just keep it out of sight of the public, that's all that matters.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by butthurt on Friday July 29 2016, @10:52PM

    by butthurt (6141) on Friday July 29 2016, @10:52PM (#381784) Journal

    In the 1970s, the CIA arranged to have a ship built for the purpose of salvaging a Soviet submarine. The cover story had to do with these manganese nodules.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_Explorer [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 30 2016, @01:20AM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday July 30 2016, @01:20AM (#381828) Homepage

      If it's not that it's a straight-faced attempt at addressing China's dominance in supplying rare-earth Metals.

      Or for finding subsea nukes like the one which caused Fukushima and will likely cause other "tsunami" in the future.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @01:45AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @01:45AM (#381834)

      was the one housing the Sea Shadow when it got sold for scrap a few years back. I remembered reading it was going to be retrofit.

      Does anyone know what happened with that, or how heavily it was going to be modified from its original Hughes purchased state?

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @11:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @11:25PM (#381793)

    Let's harvest them too. 2 cm is big enough for kebabs.

  • (Score: 2, Disagree) by jmorris on Saturday July 30 2016, @12:40AM

    by jmorris (4844) on Saturday July 30 2016, @12:40AM (#381817)

    So the barren nothing out on the deep ocean floor suddenly becomes a precious, diverse community of megafauna the instant somebody wants to harvest some of the minerals. An area the side of CONUS and if they pick up some of the rocks a hitherto unseen ecosystem will collapse. Why am I not surprised? Is there ANYWHERE the enviros wouldn't object?

    Listen up chuckleheads. If you want iPhones and the rest of the fun parts of the modern, industrialized world we gotta mine minerals. So pick one: land, sea or space. There is no option #4. We have already hit the point where most of the land area attracts so many lawyers it isn't practical to mine, space is lifeless but we aren't quite ready to go there... and the enviros and the U.N. are already primed to object anyway. Picking up metal rich rocks just laying on the ocean floor is just about the lowest environmental impact mining we are likely to see. So lets tell the greens to STFU and get on with it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @12:56AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @12:56AM (#381821)

      "All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landings there."

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @02:23AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @02:23AM (#381854)

      So pick one: land, sea or space. There is no option #4.

      Electronic and industrial waste?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Francis on Saturday July 30 2016, @03:53AM

      by Francis (5544) on Saturday July 30 2016, @03:53AM (#381871)

      First off, the sea bottom is largely unexplored, we don't really know what we're screwing up there. The most likely reason for the discovery now is that nobody had gotten around to examining that portion of the seafloor.

      Secondly, we don't need those minerals. We haven't yet attempted to extract them, so it sort of suggests that we probably aren't going to die a nasty death if we don't extract them.

      And lastly, we're doing damage now that might be impossible to undo. And even if we can ultimately undo the damage, it would take a huge amount of money and time for that to happen. Better hope that the cure for cancer or the data we need to study for space exploration doesn't lie down there.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @03:58PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @03:58PM (#381973)

      I just knew this comment would be here, though it could have been a handful of users. Jlo was top of the list though. I guess the whole integrated ecosystem still isn't enough to convince some people not to fuck with it. Damn the possible collapse, full profits ahead!!

  • (Score: 2) by Some call me Tim on Saturday July 30 2016, @05:11AM

    by Some call me Tim (5819) on Saturday July 30 2016, @05:11AM (#381882)

    Whatever you do, don't make the Horta angry! http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Horta [wikia.com]
    Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a brick layer!

    --
    Questioning science is how you do science!