It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
CTHULHU STUDIES For the First Time Ever, the Colossal Squid Might Have Shown Its Secret Face
Darren Orf Thu, 13 June 2024
Although its the largest invertebrate species in the world, scientists have never glimpsed the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) in its natural habitat.
However, a non-profit ocean research team named Kolossal may have finally spotted a juvenile colossal squid as it traversed the waters around Antarctica. If true, this would be the first video of its kind.
The team captured this footage by rigging a deep-sea camera to a polar tourism vessel.
Humans spend nearly their entire lives on land, but the Earth we call home is really a water world. With 71 percent of the Earth’s surface covered by water, this expansive ecosystem has been difficult to study, and many animals of the deep ocean remain a complete mystery. One of the most spellbinding of these animals is the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni). When full-grown, this creature is about as long as a bus and weighs nearly 1,100 pounds.
Believed to live in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica, this immense cephalopod—the largest invertebrate species on the planet— has never been observed in its natural habitat. Scientists only get a good look at these animals when trawlers accidentally catch them in their nets. But a new kind of oceanographic study seems to have struck gold last year when international research team and non-profit called Kolossal appeared to have stumbled across a juvenile colossal squid during one of its four trips to Antarctica from December of 2022 to March of 2023.
The team used a novel approach for imaging the ocean—outfitting a polar tourism vessel called the Ocean Endeavor with a deep-sea camera. Thankfully, the research team released the footage, which the website IFLScience promptly posted to YouTube.
“Antarctica is experiencing rapid and complex change, and it is critical to have a better understanding of these changes for the region’s ocean ecosystems,” the Kolossal team wrote in a paper detailing the method in February. “The costs and logistical challenges to operate scientific research vessels prohibits the scaling of crucial science and discovery in the region. Yet, the tourism industry in Antarctica is growing rapidly, and collaboration between tourism companies and researchers provides important access to the region.”
While leveraging tourism for marine exploration is a logistical win-win, finding verified footage of a colossal squid is as hard as ever. Even the short clip of the above specimen isn’t confirmed, as the video could be capturing an adult glass squid Galiteuthis glacialis or perhaps even a species completely unknown to science. The video is currently being peer-reviewed by experts, but it’s unlikely that scientists will ever know for sure. But because footage of any squid species in the Southern Ocean is rare, the footage is a huge victory for marine biologists studying these famously elusive animals regardless of its contents.
“The two known Cranchiidae taxa seen in the Antarctic are Galiteuthis glacialis and Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni,” Aaron Evans, who is peer reviewing the footage, told IFLScience. “The squid seen here could belong to different life stages of either of those taxa—and is an exciting example of wild cranchiid behavior, as I cannot think of existing video footage of either of those squid in their natural environment.”
Although the team’s stated goal is to capture footage of an adult colossal squid in its natural environment, according to IFLScience, the camera filmed nearly 80 species. Among them were giant volcano sponges, Antarctic sunflower stars, and many other marine invertebrates.
For now, the world’s largest invertebrate species frustratingly remains one of the animal kingdom’s largest mysteries. But as marine biologists team up with tourism vessels to explore the oceans, some of the our water planet’s biggest questions could slowly be answered.
At The Mountains of Madness (2021)
H.P. Lovecraft feature film adaptation in full for free.
Monday, April 08, 2024
Mediterranean marine worm has developed eyes “as big as millstones"
Scientists are amazed at the discovery of a bristle worm with eyes as sharp as those of mammals. The researchers from University of Copenhagen and Lund University suspect that they may have a secretive language, only seen by their own species
UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN - FACULTY OF SCIENCE
IMAGE:
MARVELOUS EYES, BUT YOU BE THE JUDGE OF THIS SEA CRITTER’S BEAUTY. VANADIS IS A BYNAME OF THE NORSE GODDESS OF LOVE, FREYA. PHOTO: MICHAEL BOK
Scientists are amazed at the discovery of a bristle worm with such sharp-seeing eyes that they can measure up to those of mammals and octopuses. The researchers from University of Copenhagen and Lund University suspect that these marine worms may have a secretive language, which uses UV light only seen by their own species. The advanced vision of such a primitive creature helps to finally settle an epic debate about the evolution of eyes.
The Vanadis bristle worm has eyes as big as millstones – relatively speaking. Indeed, if our eyes were proportionally as big as the ones of this Mediterranean marine worm, we would need a big sturdy wheelbarrow and brawny arms to lug around the extra 100kg.
As a set, the worm's eyes weigh about twenty times as much as the rest of the animal’s head and seem grotesquely out of place on this tiny and transparent marine critter. As if two giant, shiny red balloons have been strapped to its body.
Vanadis bristle worms, also known as polychaetes, can be found around the Italian island of Ponza, just west of Naples. Like some of the island's summertime partiers, the worms are nocturnal and out of sight when the sun is high in the sky. So what does this polychaete do with its walloping peepers after dark? And what are they good for?
Neuro- and marine biologist Anders Garm from the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Biology couldn’t ignore the question. Setting other plans aside, the researcher felt compelled to dive in and try to find out. He was hooked as soon as his colleague Michael Bok at Lund University showed him a recording of the bristle worm.
"Together, we set out to unravel the mystery of why a nearly invisible, transparent worm that feeds in the dead of night has evolved to acquire enormous eyes. As such, the first aim was to answer whether large eyes endow the worm with good vision," says Michael Bok who together with Anders Garm, authors a new research article that does just that.[LINK]
It turns out that the Vanadis’ eyesight is excellent and advanced. Research has demonstrated that this worm can use its eyes to see small objects and track their movements.
"It's really interesting because an ability like this is typically reserved for us vertebrates, along with arthropods (insects, spiders, etc.) and cephalopods (octopus, squid). This is the first time that such an advanced and detailed view has been demonstrated beyond these groups. In fact, our research has shown that the worm has outstanding vision. Its eyesight is on a par with that of mice or rats, despite being a relatively simple organism with a miniscule brain," says Garm.
This is what makes the worm's eyes and extraordinary vision unique in the animal kingdom. And it was this combination of factors about the Vanadis bristle worm that really caught Anders Garm's attention. The researcher’s work focuses on understanding how otherwise simple nervous systems can have very complex functions – which was definitely the case here.
UV light and a secret language
For now, the researchers are trying to find out what caused the worm to develop such good eyesight. The worms are transparent, except for their eyes, which need to register light to function. So they can't be inherently transparent. That means that they come with evolutionary trade-offs. As becoming visible must have come at a cost to the Vanadis, something about the evolutionarily benefits of its eyes must outweigh the consequences.
Precisely what the worms gain remains unclear, particularly because they are nocturnal animals that tuck away during the day, when eyes usually work best.
“No one has ever seen the worm during the day, so we don't know where it hides. So, we cannot rule out that its eyes are used during the day as well. What we do know is that its most important activities, like finding food and mating, occur at night. So, it is likely that this is when its eyes are important," says Anders Garm.
Part of the explanation may be due to the fact that these worms see different wavelengths of light than we humans do. Their vision is geared to ultraviolet light, invisible to the human eye. And according to Garm, this may indicate that the purpose of its eyes is to see bioluminescent signals in the otherwise pitch-black nighttime sea.
"We have a theory that the worms themselves are bioluminescent and communicate with each other via light. If you use normal blue or green light as bioluminescence, you also risk attracting predators. But if instead, the worm uses UV light, it will remain invisible to animals other than those of its own species. Therefore, our hypothesis is that they’ve developed sharp UV vision so as to have a secret language related to mating," says Garm, who continues:
"It may also be that they are on the lookout look for UV bioluminescent prey. But regardless, it makes things truly exciting as UV bioluminescence has yet to be witnessed in any other animal. So, we hope to be able to present this as the first example," says the researcher.
Exciting for robotics research and evolutionary history
As a result of the discovery, Anders Garm and his research colleagues have also started working with robotics researchers from the Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller Institute at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) who find technological inspiration in biology. Together, they share a common goal of investigating whether it is possible to understand the mechanism behind these eyes well enough so as to translate it into technology.
"Together with the robotics researchers, we are working to understand how animals with brains as simple as these can process all of the information that such large eyes are likely able to collect. This suggests that there are super smart ways to process information in their nervous system. And if we can detect these mechanisms mathematically, they could be integrated into computer chips and used to control robots," explains Ander Garm.
According to Garm, Vanadis' eyes are also interesting with regards to evolutionary theory because they could help settle one of the heaviest academic debates surrounding the theory: Whether eyes have only evolved once – and evolved into every form that we know of today, or whether they have arisen several times, independently of one another, in evolutionary history.
Vanadis' eyes are built simply, but equipped with advanced functionality. At the same time, they have evolved in a relatively short evolutionarily time span of just a few million years. This means that they must have developed independently of, for example, human eyes, and that the development of vision, even with a high level of function, is possible in a relatively short time.
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Extra Info: The eye and evolution
In general, eyes come in complex sizes, which is the case with the human eye, for example. Evolutionary skeptics have often pointed to the eye and said 'see for yourself, this must have been created by God'. The eyes of the Vanadis worm have a surprisingly simple natural "design" that has evolved in a relatively short time span compared to typical evolutionary timelines – i.e., a few million years. Despite their simplicity, they are advanced.
The emergence of eyes has been the subject of many debates since Darwin presented his theory of evolution in On the Origin of Species, both among those who are religious and skeptics outside science, as well as among eye biology and vision researchers.
One of these debates has been about whether eyes have only evolved once – and into every form that we know today, or whether they have arisen several times, independently of one another, in evolutionary history. Research in recent years has provided a number of pieces of evidence to support the latter, and the eyes of the Vanadis worm are another powerful piece of evidence in that direction.
“This means that they must have developed independently of, for example, human eyes and that the development of vision, even with a high level of function, is possible in a relatively short time. Because, this worm is so young on an evolutionary scale," says Michael Bok.
Darwin and the eye
In Charles Darwin’s major work, On the Origin of Species, he wrote about the incredible nature of the eye in relation to his theory of evolution by natural selection. He is often quoted by evolutionary skeptics as saying:
“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree...”
But these quotations often forget to add the end of the passage:
“Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real.” (Origin of Species, chap. 6)
Facts: The Worm
The Vanadis worm belongs to a family of large-eyed bristle worms, or polychaeta, found in many parts of the world.
Its eyesight rivals that of rodents such as mice and rats. Vanadis' eyes weigh about 20 times more than the rest of its head
The worms can see UV light and focus on relatively small objects, tracking them as they move.
It is nocturnal. The researchers believe that these bristle worms use their eyes to communicate for mating and hunting prey.
Facts: Bioluminescence
Bioluminescence is when organisms are luminescent, i.e., capable of producing light using their own power. This can be done chemically within the body, as with glow-worms.
Should the researchers succeed in documenting it, the Vanadis worm could become the first animal proven to use UV bioluminescence, meaning that they create ultraviolet light naturally, for communication, among other things.
A 30 million year-old fossil whale may not be the heaviest animal of all time after all, according to a new analysis by paleontologists. The new analysis puts Perucetus colossus back in the same weight range as modern whales and smaller than the largest blue whales ever recorded.
FULL STORY
A 30 million year-old fossil whale may not be the heaviest animal of all time after all, according to a new analysis by paleontologists at UC Davis and the Smithsonian Institution. The new analysis puts Perucetus colossus back in the same weight range as modern whales and smaller than the largest blue whales ever recorded. The work is published Feb. 29 in PeerJ.
A fossil skeleton of Perucetus was discovered in Peru and described in a paper in Nature last year.
The animal lived about 39 million years ago and belonged to an extinct group of early whales called the basilosaurids.
Perucetus' bones are unusually dense. Mammal bones usually have a solid exterior and are spongy or hollow in the center.
Some animals have more of the center filled in with solid bone, making them dense and heavy.
In aquatic animals, heavy bones can offset buoyancy from body fat and blubber, allowing the animal to maintain neutral buoyancy in water or -- in the case of the hippopotamus -- to walk on river beds.
The fossil whale bones have both extensive in-filling and extra growth of bone on the outside as well, a condition called pachyostosis also seen in some modern aquatic mammals, such as manatees.
Based on a series of assumptions, the original authors (Giovanni Bianucci at the University of Pisa, Italy and colleagues) estimated a body mass for Perucetus of 180 metric tons (ranging from 85 to 340 metric tons). This would make Perucetus as heavy as, or heavier than the biggest blue whales known, even though it is considerably shorter at 17 meters long compared to a blue whale at about 30 meters.
How to weigh a whale?
Professor Ryosuke Motani, a paleobiologist at the UC Davis Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said that these estimates would make Perucetus impossibly dense.
"It would have been a job for the whale to stay at the surface, or even to leave the sea bottom -- it would have required continuous swimming against the gravity to do anything in the water," Motani said.
Motani and Nick Pyenson at the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of Natural History reexamined the assumptions used to make those estimates.
The first problem is that Bianucci et al used the fossil bones to estimate the weight of the skeleton, then extrapolated to the weight of the entire animal, assuming that the skeletal and non-skeletal mass would scale at the same rate with increasing body size.
But measurements of other animals show this is not the case, Motani and Pyenson argue.
The original estimates also overestimated how much overall body mass increases as a result of pachyostosis.
But evidence from manatees shows that their bodies are relatively light relative to their skeletal mass.
Motani and Pyenson estimate that the 17-meter long Perucetus weighed in at 60 to 70 tons, considerably less than the known weights of blue whales.
A Perucetus that grew to 20 meters could weigh over 110 tons, still well short of the largest blue whales at 270 tons.
"The new weight allows the whale to come to the surface and stay there while breathing and recovering from a dive, like most whales do," Motani said.
Paleontologists have not yet uncovered a skull or teeth of Perucetus, so it is hard to tell what it ate. Sustaining a huge body takes a lot of food. Bianucci et al suggested that Perucetus might have browsed on coastal fish and shellfish, or scavenged carcases, as some sharks do. The new slimmed-down size estimate puts Perucetus in a similar range to sperm whales (80 tons, 20 meters long), which hunt large prey such as giant squid.
Journal Reference:Ryosuke Motani, Nicholas D. Pyenson. Downsizing a heavyweight: factors and methods that revise weight estimates of the giant fossil whale Perucetus colossus. PeerJ, 2024; 12: e16978 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.16978
University of California - Davis. "Slimming down a colossal fossil whale." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 29 February 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/02/240229124554.htm>.
Monday, February 26, 2024
John Wayne's Wildest Non-Western Movie Sees Him Fight A Sea Monster (He Almost Turned It Down)
Despite being given a chance to team up with an acclaimed director, John Wayne nearly turned down a chance to fight a sea monster in a wild 1942 film.
SUMMARY
John Wayne's versatile filmography included sea monster movie "Reap the Wild Wind," a unique break from his usual Westerns and war films.
Wayne's character in "Reap the Wild Wind" challenges his traditional roles by losing a fight and not getting the girl in the end.
Despite initial reluctance, starring in "Reap the Wild Wind" actually enhanced John Wayne's Hollywood reputation and led to more opportunities.
Despite being a huge critical and commercial success, John Wayne's only sea monster movie is far from one of his best-known films. Although famous primarily for headlining Westerns and war films, the Hollywood action legend wasn't associated exclusively with those two genres. At numerous points in his long career in Hollywood, Wayne broke away from his standard formula.
In addition to a multitude of Westerns and war classics, Wayne also held lead roles in romantic comedies, adventure films, modern-day dramas, and more. One of these periods was in the early 1940s, even though he had recently made his first massive Western hit, Stagecoach, in 1939. John Wayne took time to star in a number of non-Westerns, including The Shepherd of the Hills, A Man Betrayed, and more. After starring opposite Joan Blondell in 1942's Lady for a Night, Wayne appeared in Reap the Wild Wind, which would go on to become a unique entry in his filmography. Reap The Wild Wind Bucks 2 Massive John Wayne Movie Trends
Reap the Wild Wind was an unusual movie for Wayne for more than one reason. Taking place in the 19th century, the 1942 adventure epic featured an ending in which the main characters battled a monster-sized giant squid. Wayne played the role of Jack Stuart, a ship captain who winds up in a love triangle with the other two leads, Ray Milland's Steven Tolliver and Paullette Goddard's Loxi Claiborne. A dispute over what caused a mysterious shipwreck - which Jack was taking the blame for - resulted in Jack and Steve teaming up to fight the 45-foot-long squid in the ocean in Reap the Wild Wind's ending.
As if John Wayne fighting a sea monster rather than a Western outlaw isn't surprising enough on its own, it's only part of what makes Reap the Wild Wind such a strange movie for the actor. True to his "tough guy" image, John Wayne characters regularly get involved in gunfights and brawls, and provided that the fight is fair, there's always an expectation for them to come out on top. However, that's not what happens in Reap the Wild Wind, which pits Jack against Steve. Despite initially painting Jack as 'the hero' of the story, it's actually Steve who wins their fist fight - and the one who ends up with the two men's love interest at the end of the film.
Why John Wayne Almost Turned Down His Reap The Wild Wind Role
Interestingly, Reap the Wild Wind taking such an unexpected direction with a John Wayne movie almost resulted in the actor passing up the role. According to Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille by Scott Eymann, getting Wayne to accept the part of Jack took some convincing, partially because of the fight his character was to lose to Steve. The book claims that after the director said that the role wouldn't lead to any loss of dignity, Wayne told DeMille that being beaten up by Ray Milland would "lose anybody their dignity."
It's important to keep in mind that although Wayne was not necessarily Hollywood's biggest star in 1942 and many of his biggest films were still years away, Wayne was still considered a leading actor by this point. Wayne had already made Stagecoach and was accustomed to getting top billing. In Shooting Star: A Biography Of John Wayne, Maurice Zolotow revealed that Wayne expressed his concerns to DeMille about playing what he felt was a supporting part. But as the book says, DeMille managed to sway Wayne through his persistence, telling the actor, "I want you very much. I give you my word of honor that I will do you justice."
How Reap The Wild Wind Helped John Wayne's Career
Reap the Wild Wind isn't usually mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Red River, Sands of Iwo Jiwa, Rio Bravo, or Stagecoach, but even so, it remains an important milestone in the Hollywood icon's career. It received critical acclaim at the time, including three Academy Award nominations. The positive buzz it had earned at the time, combined with the prestige that comes with starring a Cecil DeMille film, helped improve Wayne's reputation and garnered him additional interest from other studios.
Zolotow wrote in Shooting Star that John Wayne had said of his career after Reap the Wild Wind, "I had no trouble holding up my head in Hollywood." Based on his comments, putting aside his reservations about the Jack Stuart role was the right move for the actor. After all, it obviously didn't harm his image, as his litany of "tough guy" roles only piled up as the years passed.
Saturday, February 17, 2024
Singapore engineer pivots from oil rigs to 'fish farm of the future'
Singapore (AFP) – A high-tech fish farm floats just off the coast of Singapore, part of a plan by a retired engineer who once built oil rigs to bring diners cleaner, healthier seafood.
Issued on: 17/02/2024 -
Fish tanks at Singapore's Eco Ark simulate ocean conditions that allow fish to swim against a current while shielding them from diseases
The tiny city-state imports 90 percent of its food but hopes to locally source about a third of it by 2030 to guard against supply disruptions such as climate change, disease and conflict.
So officials are backing projects such as Eco Ark, a giant aquafarm that produces seabass, grouper and threadfin for restaurant tables across the city of nearly six million.
The facility harvests 30,000 kilograms (66,000 pounds) a month, which ex-engineer Leow Ban Tat, founder of Eco Ark and the Aquaculture Centre of Excellence, says is 20 times more per hectare than traditional open-net cage farms.
"There is a great difference in what we do because we believe in technology," Leow, who once built oil rigs, told AFP.
The structure, which sits on a purpose-built submersible platform, filters seawater through an ozone machine to kill disease-causing pathogens before then transferring it into fish tanks six metres (20 feet) deep.
The tanks simulate ocean conditions to keep the fish swimming against the current, making them leaner and more nutritious, and shield them from threats such as disease, plankton blooms and oil spills.
Leow, 65, said the water is so clean that, unlike other farms, Eco Ark has no need to add antibiotics, which help protect fish from disease but can cause resistance in humans over time and affect the environment.
Adult fish are given frozen squid as well as pelleted feed, with younger ones also given probiotics "which helps with both digestion and physiological function and improves the performance of the animal", he said. 'Really delicious'
Leow is also looking to cut emissions from his "fish farms of the future" by adding solar panels and has built a hatchery after finding that juvenile fish imported from Malaysia and Australia carried diseases.
Eco Ark's fish are delivered to more than 80 restaurants, supermarkets and specialty shops that put a premium on them being freshly harvested and healthy.
Leow Ban Tat, founder of the Aquaculture Centre of Excellence, hopes to eventually export the technology behind his Eco Ark fish farm
Leow hopes eventually to export not only the fish but the technology for the Eco Ark, which he says can be built near coastal areas to shorten delivery time and cut costs.
Daniel Teo, the co-founder of Singapore's Kin Hoi restaurant, which buys fish from the Eco Ark facility, said: "It is very important that local farmers (who) actually know the economy" should be encouraged to help meet demand.
Food security has become a major issue for Singapore, roughly the size of New York City but without the space to meet its agricultural and industrial needs, so funding has been granted for everything from rooftop vegetable farms to Eco Ark's fish farm.
However, Madhumitha Ardhanari, principal sustainability strategist at the Forum for the Future nonprofit group, said Singaporean fish farmers' heavy reliance on government subsidies raised concerns about their long-term survival.
Kin Hoi diner Martin Pei had no complaints as he polished off a portion of fried seabass from Eco Ark.
"The fish was really delicious," he said. "Just eating it, I didn't know that it was farmed."
Throughout history, sailors have told tales of krakens, great serpents, mermaids, and all manner of sea monsters. For better or for worse, we haven’t managed to find any reliable evidence that any of them actually exist (although the giant squid is a pretty good stand in), but some old sailing tales turned out to be true.
For hundreds of years, oceanic explorers have reported encountering rogue waves which appear out of nowhere to destroy ships and claim lives. Those stories were largely discounted until scientists confirmed the existence of a rogue wave in the ‘90s. Now, a fortunate buoy measurement reveals the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded. The Most Extreme Rogue Wave Ever Recorded
In November of 2020, scientists received an alert from a single buoy floating off the coast of British Columbia. According to the measurements, the buoy had suddenly lifted more than 17 meters (58 feet) above its previous position before crashing back down again. It took more than a year for scientists to figure out what had happened, and we know now that the buoy was picked up by a fleeting but impressive rogue wave.
Otherwise known as “extreme storm waves,” a rogue wave is defined as any wave which is at least twice the size of its next-door neighbors. They can be unpredictable and can even come from unexpected directions, moving at odds to prevailing winds and nearby waves. The few folks who have been unfortunate enough to see a rogue wave up close have described them as a wall of water with nearly sheer walls. Aerial view of waves splashing in sea.
Aerial view of waves splashing in sea. Photo: Nazar Abbas Photography/Getty Images
Rogue waves are powerful enough to threaten sailing vessels, oceanic equipment like oil rigs and scientific stations, and coastal areas. We may have spent centuries believing they were just a legend told by bored sailors, but we now believe that at least some shipwrecks can be laid at the watery feet of rogue waves. Moreover, climate change is predicted to make rogue waves even more impressive. If our environmental relationships continue as they have been, we can expect the rogue wave record to be broken again relatively soon.
It isn’t totally clear how and why rogue waves form, but researchers have a couple of ideas. Data from these sorts of sensing buoys is just what we need to get a better handle on things. One idea is that several smaller waves moving in the same direction but at different speeds all line up and reinforce one another, creating a mega wave. An alternate explanation involves a stormfront forming waves which move against the normal wave direction. If waves crash into one another just right, their wavelengths can shorten, collapse together, and create a short-lived monster wave.
While 58 feet is far from the tallest wave we’ve ever seen, the ratio between the November 2020 wave and its neighbors was the most extreme we’ve ever seen. Most rogue waves are about twice the size of nearby waves, but this one was almost three times the size of its neighbors.
Tuesday, November 21, 2023
NO DEEP SEA MINING
The promise and risks of deep-sea mining
Reuters | November 15, 2023 | 1 Credit: The Metals Company
LONG READ
The International Seabed Authority is working to set regulations for deep-sea mining as companies engaged in the clean energy transition clamor for more minerals. That transition will be a central focus at the United Nations’ COP28 climate summit in Dubai from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12.
The most-prominent of the three proposed types of deep-sea mining involves using a giant robot that is sent down to the ocean floor from a support vessel.
This robot travels to depths of roughly 5,000 meters to the ocean floor — the least explored place on the planet.
The seafloor, especially in parts of the Pacific Ocean, is covered by potato-shaped rocks known as polymetallic nodules that are filled with metals used to make lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.
Many scientists say it’s unclear whether and to what extent removing these nodules could damage the ocean’s ecosystem. Automaker BMW, tech giant Google and even Rio Tinto, the world’s second-largest mining company, have called for a temporary ban on the practice.
Composed of manganese, nickel, copper, cobalt and other trace minerals, these nodules hold some of the key ingredients needed to fuel the energy transition.
The metals in those nodules can be used to build electric vehicle (EV) batteries, cell phones, solar panels and other electronic devices. They are separate from rare earths, a group of 17 metals also used in EVs.
With climate change escalating, governments are under pressure to rein in emissions – especially from the transportation sector, which was responsible for about 20% of global emissions in 2022.
By 2040, the world will need to use twice the amount of these metals as it is using today in order to meet global energy transition targets, according to the International Energy Agency. And the world will need at least four times today’s amount in reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Many of the minerals that go into making an EV are becoming harder to find on land, pushing up mining costs in recent years. That’s increased prices for EVs and other electronics after they had fallen for years up to 2020. A typical EV needs six times more minerals in total than a vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine.
Source: IEA (2021), The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions
The scarcity and rising demand has made some governments and companies eager to allow mining in the oceans, which cover more than 70% of the planet’s surface.
First discovered by British sailors in 1873, the potato-shaped polymetallic nodules take millions of years to form as minerals in the seawater precipitate onto pieces of sand, shell fragments or other small materials.
Minerals are also found near deep-sea hydrothermal vents, where they’re called vent sulfides, and within seamounts known as ferromanganese crusts. Processes for extracting these minerals are similar to land-based mining, but harder to do underwater. That’s partly why the nodules are so appealing. Land vs sea?
The mining industry has long had a mixed reputation on land. While it supplies the materials used to build our modern lives, it has contributed to deforestation, produced large amounts of toxic waste and in some parts of the world has fueled a rise in child labor. In 2019, a tailings dam — a structure that stores the muddy waste byproduct of the mining process — collapsed and killed hundreds of people at an iron ore mine in Brazil.
The average grade of mines on land — that is, the percentage of minerals extracted with every metric ton of rock — has declined over the last decade, requiring miners to dig deeper to extract the same amount of minerals.
All of these factors make deep-sea mining more appealing, supporters say. Environmentalists, however, say it’s a false dichotomy, as land mining will continue whether or not deep-sea mining is allowed.
Any country can allow deep-sea mining in its territorial waters, and Norway, Japan and the Cook Islands are close to allowing it. The International Seabed Authority (ISA), which is backed by the United Nations, governs the practice in international waters. The ISA missed a July 2023 deadline for setting standards for acceptable sediment disturbance, noise and other factors from deep-sea mining – a bureaucratic misstep that now allows anyone to apply for a commercial mining permit while the ISA continues negotiations.
“What are the alternatives if we don’t go to the ocean for these metals? The only alternative is more land mining and more pushing into sensitive ecosystems, including rainforests,” said Gerard Barron, CEO of Vancouver-based The Metals Co, the most-vocal deep-sea mining company and one of 31 companies to which the ISA has granted permits to explore for – but not yet commercially produce – deep-sea minerals.
Other companies with exploration permits include Russia’s JSC Yuzhmorgeologiya, Blue Minerals Jamaica, China Minmetals, and Kiribati’s Marawa Research and Exploration. Their potential future activities are seen as augmenting mining on land. Where are these minerals?
The Metals Co — which is backed by metals giant Glencore — plans to use the robot to vacuum polymetallic nodules off a vast plain of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ).
The company wants the ISA to set deep-sea mining standards, but said it reserves the right to apply for a commercial permit after July 2024 if the regulatory process stalls again. The ISA has said its work may not finish before 2025.
Companies need ISA members to sponsor them before they can apply for exploration or commercial permits. The island nation of Nauru, which is slowly being engulfed by the Pacific Ocean and sees deep-sea mining as key to the world’s energy transition, has sponsored The Metals Co.
Slowing the pace of climate change will be key for climate-vulnerable countries like Nauru if they hope to have a chance of adapting.
“Our existence is being threatened by the global climate crisis,” said Margo Deiye, Nauru’s ambassador to the United Nations and ISA. “We don’t have the luxury of time. This is quite a new nascent industry. Having clear guidelines in place, including standards, would be really helpful.”
Data from the U.S. Geological Survey and others show that the CCZ – which covers roughly 1.3% of the world’s ocean floor – contains more nickel, cobalt and manganese than all on-land deposits, a staggering volume that supporters say shows the practice should move forward. For copper, the CCZ’s deposits are roughly equal with those on land.
Multiple companies have been collecting small numbers of nodules as part of their robot tests in the Abyssal Zone, the part of the ocean below 2,000 meters. One such study is being conducted during November. If the ISA grants The Metals Co a commercial permit, the nodules will be sent to a refinery in Japan where the metals will be processed. The company says it will sell all parts of the nodules and thus there will be no waste byproduct beyond extraneous sand.
The Indian Ocean and parts of the Pacific Ocean are also rich in mineral deposits.
A March 2023 study conducted by the metals consultancy Benchmark Mineral Intelligence found that The Metals Co’s plans for the CCZ would cut mining emissions by at least 70%. The study focused on seven criteria, including contributions to ozone depletion and global warming. The study did find that on-land cobalt mining used less water, however. “We’re not talking about mining all of the ocean,” said Barron of The Metals Co, which funded the Benchmark study but said it had no control over its results. “We’re talking about one little patch.”
Deposits of nodules, crusts, and vent sulfides can be found globally, but only a fraction of these areas are being explored and are considered areas of economic interest.
The ISA has granted 19 exploration contracts for nodules, seven for vent sulfides and five for crusts. The Metals Co holds one; others are held by governments or state-controlled companies in China, Russia, France, India, Poland and Japan.
Decades of research has shown that deep sea mining could harm marine life or ecosystems. For example, sediment plumes kicked up by the robotic vacuum could disrupt animal migrations, according to one study published in February in Nature Ocean Sustainability.
The full importance of the nodules within the ocean ecosystem is unclear, and nodule regrowth could take millions of years. The nodules provide homes for anemones, barnacles, corals and other life forms, while bacteria and other invertebrates thrive on the ocean floor.
“These nodules are essential ecosystem architects. If you remove the nodules, you will remove the architecture supporting the entire oceanic ecosystem,” said Beth Orcutt, an oceanographer at Maine’s Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences who participated in the ISA standards debate.
What can be lost forever
The lively nodules
Once thought of as a desert devoid of life, the seabed is now estimated to have an extensive range of biodiversity. A 2016 study found a statistically significant correlation between aquatic life in the CCZ and nodule abundance.
Source: Reuters
The sediment plume
As the robot moves across the ocean floor, sediment clouds are stirred up and can irritate filter-feeding animals such as the corals and sponges that make nodules their home. Regrowing corals
Bamboo corals on seamounts, as all corals, grow slowly, just millimeters per year. However, plumes distort habitat and can disrupt growth. When the corals are covered by sediment, their larvae will have trouble finding new sites to attach, some scientists warn.
Octopus nurseries
Four octopus nurseries have been discovered at hydrothermal springs around seamounts in parts of the Pacific Ocean near the CCZ. These springs act as a kind of “warm spa” and boost the metabolic rate of developing octopuses, thus speeding embryonic development. These springs are difficult to find, and mining may destroy some undiscovered springs before they can be protected, Orcutt said. Hydrothermal vents
Mining is targeted at inactive vents, which have unique habitats that are even less understood than the ecosystems around active vents. The Scaly-foot snail, for example, is found only in a 300 square-km patch of the Indian Ocean near certain vents. It is the first animal listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as endangered due to the threat of deep-sea mining. Essential microbes
The most susceptible species are those that depend on the unique chemistry of the waters that vent from the seafloor. The nodules have evolved symbiotically with microbes that can turn those weird chemicals into food. Mining also threatens conditions for these tiny microbes, some scientists say. Irreversible damage
In the deep sea, it takes roughly 10,000 years for the ocean floor sediment layer to grow by just 1 millimeter, a process that includes sequestering carbon. The robotic vacuum’s disturbance reaches 10 centimeters into the seafloor, “basically resuspending a million years’ worth of time of carbon,” says the marine biologist Orcutt. Discharge plumes
The nodules, once collected, are washed and stored on a ship, with the excess sand dumped back into the ocean. Scientists worry the discarded sand could harm aquatic life, including the plankton at the bottom of the food chain and tuna. The Metals Co says it will discharge sediment at depths below 1,000 meters to avoid most marine life. Industrial noise
Studies show that loud noises can travel as far as 500 kilometers, impacting communications among marine animals like whales and causing behavioral stresses. Light pollution
On the seabed, the robotic vacuum’s floodlights can harm shrimp larvae, studies have shown. On the surface, light from vessels that support the robots may affect squid and other aquatic creatures, as well as seabirds. More study is needed, scientists say, to understand potential harm from artificial light. Human impact
In a March 2023 petition to ISA, more than 1,000 signatories from 34 countries and 56 Indigenous groups called for a total ban on deep-sea mining. Some Indigenous island communities are intimately connected to the ocean for fishing and other cultural traditions and oppose deep-sea mining, setting up a conflict with Nauru, the Cook Islands and other island nations that support it. Is there a better way?
As the world’s hunger for metals and minerals to go green increasingly clashes with the realities of the mining process, the deep sea has become the latest focal point. Ultimately, manufacturers aim to create a circular “closed-loop” system, where old electronics are recycled and their metals are used to build new products.
But reaching that goal is expected to take decades. Debate about whether sensitive ecosystems on land should be dug up have empowered deep-sea mining advocates. Some companies competing with The Metals Co believe that the robotic vacuum is the problem, and are offering potential solutions.
The startup Impossible Metals has developed a robotic device with a large claw that collects nodules as the claw glides along the seafloor. Using artificial intelligence, the robot’s claw is able to distinguish between nodules and aquatic life, the company says.
“From day one, we are focused on preserving the ecosystem,” said Jason Gillham, the CEO of Impossible Metals. However, while the Impossible Metals robot is battery-powered, its energy comes from a diesel generator on a ship at the ocean’s surface, fueling charges that the company’s methods are not fully green.
A Japanese company plans to start mining next year in territorial waters controlled by Tokyo. Chinese officials have acknowledged they lag behind other nations in the deep-sea race, but are vowing to vigorously compete in this “new frontier for international competition.” China is already exploring a massive part of the Pacific seabed west of Hawaii – an area that dwarfs the CCZ. Norway, already a prolific offshore oil producer, is on track to be the first country to allow deep-sea mining if its parliament approves, as expected, plans to mine hydrothermal vents.
For now, the ISA’s members are hotly debating the best standards for deep-sea mining.
“Nothing we do will have zero impact,” said Joe Carr, a mining engineer with the metals consultancy Axora. “We’re going to need mining for the green energy transition.” Sources:
NOAA Ocean Exploration and Research, the International Energy Agency, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Beth Orcutt at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, Pradeep Singh at Research Institute for Sustainability, Kira Mizell at U.S. Geological Survey, The Metals Co., Impossible Metals, Natural Earth, Blue Earth Bathymetry, International Seabed Authority, InterRidge Vents Database.
(By Daisy Chung, Ernest Scheyder and Clare Trainor; Editing by Julia Wolfe, Katy Daigle and Claudia Parsons)
An international team has developed the first comprehensive framework for designing networks of marine protected areas that can help vulnerable species survive as climate change drives habitat loss.
In a paper published Oct. 26 in One Earth, the researchers outlined guidelines for governments to provide long-distance larval drifters, like urchins and lobsters, as well as migratory species, like turtles and sharks, with protected stopovers along coastal corridors. Led by Stanford marine conservation scientist Nur Arafeh-Dalmau, the team included 50 scientists and practitioners from academia, conservation organizations, and management agencies from the U.S., Mexico, and Australia.
The guidelines come at a critical time as nearly every country in the world has committed to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030. Marine protected areas and similar conservation measures on land connect habitats fractured by generations of human development or erratically carved up by wildfires and heat waves.
“Until now, marine protected areas have been designed for biodiversity conservation, but not necessarily for climate resilience,” said Arafeh-Dalmau, a postdoctoral scholar in the Oceans Department at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and an honorary fellow at The University of Queensland. “They suffer from climate impacts but aren’t designed to endure them.”
Enter the Southern California Bight
As a case study, the authors used the 21 biological and physical guidelines presented in their framework to map out protections for giant kelp ecosystems and species across the Southern California Bight. This vast region is distinguished by a gradual bend in the southerly trajectory of California’s coastline where it curves to the southeast along the peninsula of Baja California, Mexico.
Here, giant kelp forests provide nursery areas, shelter from predators and storms, and food to hundreds of commercially and culturally valuable species. In recent years, marine heat waves and prolonged periods of low dissolved oxygen have led to the collapse of commercially valuable fisheries like jumbo squid and abalone, jeopardizing the livelihoods of local communities.
Though Baja California is home to large marine protected areas and in the process of designing more, less than 1% of coastal waters are fully protected and prohibit extractive activities like fishing or drilling. In California, marine protected areas comprise 16% of state waters, half of which are fully protected. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, these protected waters make up the largest ecologically connected marine protected area network in the world.
However, the network doesn’t account for how species move between the U.S. and Mexico, which means even if one country protects species’ nurseries, those benefits are lost if protections end a short drift into the neighboring country where larvae might settle and grow into adults.
“We designed a systematic approach to help resource managers stay ahead of the curve and anticipate rather than react to climate change,” said co-lead author Adrian Munguia Vega, a genomics researcher at The University of Arizona and the Applied Genomics Lab in Mexico. “A big part of that is showing how entire marine ecosystems and the species that inhabit them are connected by ocean currents that do not stop at the international border. Thus, we need coordinated efforts and protections across political boundaries.”
Integrating climate
Government agencies charged with establishing new marine protected areas typically refer to biological and physical criteria developed by scientists over the past two decades. The study authors expanded these guidelines from acknowledging the need to address climate adaptations to explicitly planning for how various future climate scenarios might play out.
For example, conservation planners today try to provide enough time for threatened species to recover from overfishing or habitat loss before allowing extractive or harvesting activities, but few models have considered how worsening marine heat waves will lengthen that recovery period. The new framework requires marine resource managers to evaluate whether proposed timelines will facilitate recovery of vulnerable species over the next decade or even century.
Management authorities also currently consider whether protected areas include the full range of habitats that regional species need to thrive. In the Southern California Bight, they might prioritize conserving a variety of sandy beaches, tidal flats, rocky reefs, and kelp forests. In addition to habitat diversity, the researchers prioritized habitat persistence or a habitat’s presence over time. Considered “climate refugia,” these habitats often experience natural temperature swings from local currents and can provide consistent relief for species faced with extreme thermal shocks.
“Climate extremes don’t stop at the boundary of a marine protected area,” said co-author Fiorenza Micheli, chair of the Oceans Department and co-director of the Center for Ocean Solutions. “If California’s network of marine protected areas had been designed with climate considerations, it would look different.”
A seal swims through a giant kelp forest in Baja California earlier this summer.
CREDIT
Mission Blue/Eduardo Sorensen
Putting the framework into practice
The researchers examined decades of satellite imagery to map giant kelp persistence along 1,678 miles (2,700 kilometers) of continuous coastline in the Southern California Bight and quantify how many safe havens they provide for larvae spawned by sea cucumbers, sea urchins, abalone, and California sheephead. They found that under current protection schemes, marine heat waves expected over the next 50 years will splinter the suitable habitat for these larvae. The authors estimate ecological connectivity, a measure of the animals’ ability to move freely from place to place, will fall by about half, while population density could decline by as much as 90%. This would mean smaller gene pools and greater risk of population collapse.
Conventional assessment methods prioritize protection of areas that have the greatest number of kelp species. The new framework, by contrast, identified sites where kelp have the highest chance of survival and are more likely to provide a stable habitat for other marine species to reproduce. They recommended a series of protected areas that link isolated populations like beads of a necklace along the Southern California Bight.
“This stepping stone strategy can be very cost-effective and cheaper for everyone,” said Arafeh-Dalamu, who documented Mexico’s worst marine heat wave from 2014 to 2016. “Maybe you need fewer areas to be protected if you are protecting the important areas.” Plus, he added, the collaboration between countries can strengthen research capacity, and ideally, diplomacy.
“We have the information and tools to design and implement marine conservation in a way that explicitly and proactively accounts for climate change,” said Micheli. “Now is the time to understand where we strategically invest in expanding and strengthening protection so these ecosystems have a future.”
Arafeh-Dalmau is also affiliated with the University of California Los Angeles.
This research was supported by the Fundación Bancaria ‘la Caixa’ under a postgraduate fellowship, The University of Queensland, the Winifred Violet Scott Charitable Trust, a UC-Mexus Collaborative Grant, and National Science Foundation grants.
