seabed

Deep-sea mining risks ‘irreversible’ harm, warns Greenpeace

2 July, 2019

Source: Financial Times
Author: Henry Sanderson

Deep-sea mining risks “severe and potentially irreversible” environmental harm and the UK should prioritise protecting the ocean rather than extracting minerals from it, Greenpeace said. The government has awarded deep-sea exploration licences to a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, which could lead to deep-sea mining despite Westminster being aware of the environmental risks, the environmental group said.

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Forest and Bird release letters, slam trawling companies over seabed protection

12 June, 2019

Source: Stuff.co.nz

Forest and Bird are claiming recently released letters show Talley’s fishing co, along with other bottom trawling companies, lobbied against seabed protection in the South Pacific.

Forest and Bird released the information on the eve of Talley’s appearance in court on charges of illegal bottom trawling.

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California Seamounts Are Sylvia Earle’s Newest “Hope Spots”

12 June, 2019

Source: Hakai Magazine
Author: Matt Koller

Nearly 180 kilometers off the coast of San Diego, California, there’s a surf break that, from time to time, spawns waves rising taller than two telephone poles stacked on top of each other. They inspire awe—and caution—in those driving the boats carrying big-wave surfers in search of the next world record. Yet there’s another hazard lurking in these waters: Bishop Rock, the summit of an enormous underwater mountain, lies just a meter or two below the surface. When the sea is particularly rough, Bishop Rock can poke its head through the troughs of larger swells.

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A petition to ban bottom trawling on underwater mountains has amassed 20,000 signatures in one week.

23 May, 2019

Source: Radio NZ
Author: Kate Gudsell

The petition was launched by environmental groups the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, ECO, Forest and Bird, Greenpeace, LegaSea and WWF-New Zealand as well as recreational fishers.

It is calling for the government to ban the destructive practice on seamounts, or submarine mountains, and other ecologically sensitive areas.

A recent report from NIWA on the impact of bottom trawling, concluded that the benthic communities on the seamounts had low resilience to the effects of bottom trawling.

It said New Zealand’s major deepwater fisheries occur on seamounts for a number of fish species, including orange roughy.

Continue reading here.

Belgian dredging company halts experiment with deep-sea nodule harvester

15 April, 2019

* The following article is available only in Dutch. To summarize: the Belgian dredging company DEME has temporarily stopped its experiment to harvest manganese nodules. Technical problems prevent the Patania II device from digging for these nodules for the time being. *

Source: VRT News
Author: Jos Vandervelden

De komende maanden zou Deme een proefprogramma starten waarbij mangaanknollen van de diepzeebodem worden opgehaald. In de Stille Zuidzee ten westen van Mexico is de Patania II te water gelaten, een rooimachine die in staat is op de bodem van de zee te opereren. De machine is met een navelstreng van zes kilometer verbonden met een onderzoeksschip aan het zeeoppervlak. Precies met deze verbinding is het de voorbije dagen misgelopen.

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New species of deep-sea corals discovered in Atlantic marine monument

11 April, 2019

Source: Phys.Org

DNA analysis recently confirmed that Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists and their collaborators at OceanX, the University of Connecticut (UConn), and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) discovered two new species of deep-sea corals during a September 2018 expedition in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument, located about 100 miles from the Northeast U.S. coast.

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