Source: Mongabay
- Using a Remotely Operated Vehicle, researchers identified more than 6,000 individuals belonging to over 170 tentative species in a small part of their study site in the eastern portion of the CCZ.
- Many of these species are rare or new to science, the team found.
- The study’s preliminary results also found that the polymetallic nodules have the highest diversity of megafuana, suggesting that mining could be disastrous for the deep-sea marine species in the CCZ.
An area targeted for deep sea mining is teeming with diverse life forms, including several new species, a new study has found.
Countries have been eyeing the deep seafloor of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) — a massive 6 million square kilometers (~2.3 million square miles) area in the Pacific Ocean — for its “polymetallic nodules”, ball-like clumps rich in metals like cobalt, copper, manganese and nickel. But life forms lurking in the dark, deep seafloor of this zone remain largely unknown.
Now, a team of researchers surveying parts of the eastern CCZ leased to the UK Seabed Resources Ltd (UK-1) is beginning to unravel some of the region’s mysteries.
During their first survey in 2013, the team discovered that the region is jam-packed with megafauna (animals over 0.79 inches in size), according to the new study published in Scientific Reports. Using a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV), the researchers identified more than 6,000 individuals belonging to over 170 tentative species, including corals, sponges, colorful sea cucumbers and shrimps, in a small part of their study site.
Many of these species are rare or new to science, the team found. For example, the ROV collected 12 species during this preliminary survey, seven of which are new to science, researchers say, while four species may even belong to new genera.
The fish Bathysaurus mollis and brittle star seen in a field of polymetallic nodules in the eastern Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Photo by Diva Amon and Craig Smith, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.Craig Smith, the project’s lead investigator and oceanography professor at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), estimates that overall, the study site is likely home to more than 1,000 species, 90 percent of which may be new to science.
“The area we studied in the eastern CCZ was more diverse than many other deep-sea areas such as the Atlantic abyss and canyons off the Hawaiian Islands,” co-author Diva Amon, a post-doctoral researcher at UHM SOEST, told Mongabay. “It was also more diverse than several Antarctic fjords.”
The study’s preliminary results also found that the marine animals at their study site seem to be concentrated around the polymetallic nodules. This is because the nodules provide large areas of hard surfaces for animals like corals or sponges to attach themselves to, Amon explained. “In fact, we found during our study that over half of all the species observed rely on the nodules as structures to fasten to,” she said. “These animals are also sessile, which means that once they settle, they cannot move.”
This association with the nodules suggests that mining could be disastrous for the deep-sea marine species.
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