The unseen man-made ‘tracks’ on the deep ocean floor

Richard Fisher for the BBC At the base of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from land, there are some curious marks on the seafloor that no animal could have made. Some of them look like narrow troughs carved into the pale silt. Others could be claw marks, gouged through the ecosystems of the deep […]

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The Top Ten Ocean Science Stories of 2020

Danielle Hall for Smithsonian Magazine The year in ocean news was filled with stories that inspired awe and wonder, including one on the discovery of new species of squid and another on a broken underwater record set by a whale. But more sobering events also occurred, including a shipwreck that caused a devastating oil spill […]

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Deep-sea ‘gold rush’: secretive plans to carve up the seabed decried

Jonathan Watts for The Guardian Private mining firms and arms companies are exerting a hidden and unhealthy influence on the fate of the deep-sea bed, according to a new report highlighting the threats facing the world’s biggest intact ecosystem. An investigation by Greenpeace found a handful of corporations in Europe and North America are increasingly dominating exploration […]

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Statement on the passing of former ISA Secretary-General Satya N. Nandan

Press Release From ISA Secretary-General Mr. Michael W. Lodge: It is with profound sadness that I learned of the passing of H.E Satya N. Nandan who served for an unprecedented three terms as Secretary-General of the International Seabed Authority (ISA). Through his 12 years of leadership, he built the confidence of the international community in the institution, and […]

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ISA international workshop reviews impact of capacity-building programmes and underscores need for a programmatic approach

The first ever international workshop on ‘Capacity development, resources and needs assessment,’ organized by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Kingston, Jamaica, concluded yesterday with a set of recommendations aimed at improving the delivery and implementation of ISA’s capacity development programmes and initiatives to meet the needs and priorities of developing States, particularly Small Island Developing […]

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First African Experts to join ISA’s Secretariat for 2-month deployment as a part of ISA-Africa Union-NORAD ADSR Project

PRESS RELEASE The first two national experts selected in the context of the Africa Deep Seabed Resources (ADSR) project joined the ISA Secretariat on 20 January 2020. A total of 10 experts, including 5 women, from different African States, members of ISA and the African Union, will be deployed with the ISA Secretariat in the […]

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Drop in the ocean

Ailbhe Goodbody for Mining Magazine | 19 December 2019 DeepGreen Metals holds rights to two exploration contracts in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, an area in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico, where it plans to collect and process polymetallic nodules – solid deposits of high-grade manganese, nickel, copper and cobalt that rest in clusters on […]

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History’s Largest Mining Operation Is About to Begin

Wil S. Hylton for the Atlantic | 19 December 2019 Unless you are given to chronic anxiety or suffer from nihilistic despair, you probably haven’t spent much time contemplating the bottom of the ocean. Many people imagine the seabed to be a vast expanse of sand, but it’s a jagged and dynamic landscape with as […]

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DeepGreen Derives Metal from Seafloor Polymetallic Nodules, Setting Stage for Commercial Scale Processing of Cleaner Base Metals

Vancouver, Canada — DeepGreen Metals, Inc., a company pioneering a new source of critical base metals which are needed for scaling up electric vehicles and energy storage globally, today announced that they have successfully derived an alloy of base metals from polymetallic nodules found on the deep ocean floor. A vast resource of essential metals — nickel, copper, cobalt […]

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What we’ve missed in the Abyss: Mining 40 years of cruise reports for biodiversity and research effort data from deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

Andrew Thaler for Southern Fried Science In the forty years since that first discovery, hundreds of research expedition ventured into the deep oceans to study and understand the ecology of deep-sea hydrothermal vents. In doing so, they discovered thousands of new species, unraveled the secrets of chemosynthesis, and fundamentally altered our understanding of what it […]

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