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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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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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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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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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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Cecilia Jamasmie for Mining [dot] Com | 10 June 2019 Canada’s DeepGreen Metals, a start-up planning to extract cobalt and other battery metals from small rocks covering the seafloor, has secured the bulk of the $150 million it needs to carry out its first feasibility studies. The financing, provided by Switzerland-based offshore pipeline company Allseas […]
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Secretary-General Micael Lodge for the Economist | 2 April 2019 Deep sea mineral exploration is one of the most tightly regulated activities in the ocean. Under international law, exploration, as distinct from marine scientific research (which is open to all States), may only be undertaken under a contract with the International Seabed Authority (ISA), an […]
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Emma Charleton for World Economic Forum | 10 April 2019 What comes to mind when you think of the high seas? Pirates, whales, giant squid and great white sharks? Long the subject of stories and myths, life in the oceans beyond territorial waters is far from picture perfect. Under threat from climate change, acidification, overfishing, […]
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Radio New Zealand | 9 April 2019 Last week, Nautilus Minerals had its common shares delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) even as it seeks to sell off its assets. In a note to the TSX last Wednesday, the company said four of its directors had resigned, including chief executive John McCoach. Read the […]
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Alex Fox for Science | 3 April 2019 No flag can claim the high seas, but many nations exploit them. As a result, life in the two-thirds of the oceans beyond any country’s territorial waters faces many threats that are largely unregulated, including overfishing and the emerging deep-sea mining industry. Now, nations are negotiating the […]
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