The Indispensable Ingredient for Victory: Defeating Sea Mines

An unmanned surface vehicle is craned aboard the Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Canberra (LCS 30), as a part of the first embarkation of the Mine Countermeasures (MCM) mission package.`An unmanned surface vehicle is craned aboard the Indepe

PUBLISHED JUL 7, 2024 3:59 PM BY CIMSEC

 

 

[By Capt. George Galdorisi]

At no time since the end of World War II have so many nations fielded blue water navies that have roamed the globe. Navies from Australia, China, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States have regional and worldwide commitments. Whether it is reinforcing or challenging rules-based order at sea, showing resolve to reassure allies and deter rivals, or exercising with other navies, these fleet also recognize that they must be prepared for high-end war at sea. Comparative naval advantage has returned as a critical unit of measure in great power competition.

But despite growing threats, navies have become accustomed to traversing the oceans and littorals with near impunity. This ability is now being increasingly jeopardized, and not necessarily by conventional high-end threats. For centuries, sea mines have presented an affordable and effective option in naval warfare. That threat is increasing today. The number of countries with mines, mining assets, mine manufacturing capabilities, and the intention to export mines has grown dramatically over the past several decades. More than fifty countries possess mines and mining capability. Of these, thirty countries have demonstrated an indigenous mine production capability and twenty have attempted to export these weapons. Additionally, non-state actors have used these cheap and plentiful weapons to hazard commercial vessels and disrupt commerce on the oceans.

When policymakers, military leaders, and analysts compare the qualities of various navies, they typically think in terms of numbers of ships, submarines, aircraft, and other conventional assets. However, considering the growing threat of sea mines worldwide, the capability to employ and defeat mines forms another core consideration in gauging the balance of naval advantage. Navies must consider how to field affordable and risk-worthy unmanned systems at scale to meet the mine threat.

A Centuries Old Challenge

Mine warfare is not new. Precursors to naval mines were first invented by innovators of Imperial China. The first plan for a sea mine in the West was drawn up by Ralph Rabbards, who presented his design to Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1574. Since the invention of the Bushnell Keg in 1776 (a watertight keg filled with gunpowder that was floated toward the enemy, detonated by a sparking mechanism if it struck a ship), mine warfare has been an important element of naval warfare.1 While the first attempt to deliver the Bushnell Keg from America’s first combat submarine, the Turtle, against a British warship in 1776 failed, subsequent attempts to employ these early mines were successful.2

Over 150 years ago, Admiral David Farragut became famous for “damning torpedoes” (which were actually mines) at the entrance to Mobile Bay during the Civil War.3 Indeed, in the early stages of the Civil War, Admiral Farragut wrote to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles about the sea mine threat posed by the Confederacy, stating, “I have always deemed it unworthy of a chivalrous nation, but it does not do to give your enemy such a decided superiority over you.” Farragut’s warning was eerily prescient. 4

The use of sea mines and countermeasures to these weapons have figured significantly in every major war and nearly every regional conflict in which the United States has been involved since the Revolutionary War. Indeed, the naval mine has been a mainstay of modern warfare. The North Sea Mine Barrage, a large minefield laid by the U.S. Navy and Royal Navy between Scotland and Norway during World War I, inhibited the movement of the German U-boat fleet. During World War I more than one thousand merchant ships and warships were lost because of the 230,000 mines used.5 NATO navies continue to clear these mines to this day.6

Mines released by U.S. Navy submarines and dropped by U.S. Army Air Force B-29 bombers in the Western Pacific during World War II sank hundreds of Japanese warships, merchant ships, and smaller vessels. During World War II 2,665 ships were lost or damaged by 100,000 offensive mines.7

In Korea during the early 1950s, the Soviets provided North Korea with thousands of sea mines. These were used to defend key harbors and multiple U.S. warships struck mines. During the Vietnam War, over 300,000 American naval mines were used. In 1972 Haiphong Harbor was seeded with 11,000 destructor mines and was shut down completely for months, and it took years to clear out all the American mines.8

In the past several decades, rogue states have indiscriminately employed sea mines. Libya used mines to disrupt commerce in the Gulf of Suez and the Strait of Bab el Mandeb. In the 1980s Iran laid mines to hazard military and commercial traffic in the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, leading to the devastating mine strike against USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58). During Operation Desert Storm in 1990-1991, the threat of mines precluded the effective use of the Navy and Marine Corps expeditionary task force off Kuwait and hazarded all U.S. and coalition forces operating in the Arabian Gulf. Indeed, Operation Desert Storm highlighted the importance of mine warfare with the heavy damage dealt to USS Princeton (CG 59) and USS Tripoli (LPH 10). The U.S. Navy has an abundant history of employing mines and striking them, but it remains unclear what the U.S. Navy’s mine strategy is for modern naval warfare.

Captain Bruce McEwen, commanding officer of amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli (LPH-10), inspects damage to the vessel inflicted by an Iraqi mine that the ship struck while serving as a mine clearing platform during Operation Desert Storm, February 18, 1991. (Photo via U.S. National Archives)

Today’s Ongoing Mine Challenge

Mine warfare remains a critical element of naval capability. In terms of availability, variety, affordability, ease of deployment, and potential impact on naval operations, mines are some of the most attractive weapons available.

Sea mines are hard to find, difficult to neutralize, and can present a deadly hazard to any vessel—especially those ships specifically designed to hunt them. They can also heavily shape behavior and weigh on the operational calculus of commanders, making them a source of potent psychological effects in the battlespace. 

Great power rivals are likely to employ mines in any conflict with the United States. Scott Truver highlighted the danger posed by China’s mine warfare capabilities, as well as those of other potentially hostile nations:

“The mine warfare experiences of America and other nations are not lost on the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Chinese naval analysts and historians understand the asymmetric potential for mine warfare to baffle the enemy, and thus achieve exceptional combat results.’ Mines provide what some have described as affordable security via asymmetric means.”9

Seth Cropsey echoed similar challenges and highlighted the mining capabilities China and Russia would bring to the fight. He focused primarily on the threat from China, noting:

“One of the top global mine threats comes from China. It has been estimated that Beijing has as many as 100,000 such weapons. Those range from the old-fashioned moored contact mine to include mines that have rocket-propelled weapons and target detection systems. In the event of a conflict with China, the United States is unlikely to approach warfare from the land. That leaves us with the seas as the place where conflict is most likely to play out.

Beijing would likely concentrate on creating choke points in areas such as the archipelagos that separate East Asia from the Middle East and the South China Sea. That means that sea control and navigating around China’s anti-access and area denial capabilities will be crucial. It’s reasonable to expect that the Chinese would use mines there, and reasonable to expect that they would use mines if they decided to use force against Taiwan. Moving through those straits is crucial and being able to clear them of mines is equally important.”10

The danger of naval mines being employed short of major war is acute in the Middle East. In October 2020, a Maltese-flagged tanker was damaged by a mine while taking on crude oil the Yemeni port of Bir Ali. MV Syra reportedly suffered significant damage, resulting in an oil spill.11 Shortly after this event, in November 2020, a mine in the Red Sea exploded and damaged a Greek oil tanker.12 In December 2020, a Singapore-flagged tanker berthed at the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah was damaged by a mine, with Houthi militia from Yemen strongly linked to this attack.13 In January 2021, an oil tanker off the coast of Iraq discovered a mine attached to its hull.14 Regional navies, assisted by U.S. and U.K. navies, have stepped up mine countermeasures exercises in the Arabian Gulf.15 Most recently, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States conducted the Artemis Trident MCM Exercise in Arabian Gulf.16

As part of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia mined the waters off the Crimean Peninsula. Some of those mines either broke loose or were cut loose and drifted into shipping lanes used by Ukrainian and NATO ships.17 Russia has continued to use sea mines extensively during the conflict in Ukraine. One of the most prominent examples involved Russian forces laying mines along the Dnieper River to the north of Kherson city to make it harder for the Ukrainians to cross.18

Other incidents have included Russian drifting mines that have been found along the coasts of Turkey and Romania, as well as elsewhere in the Black Sea. An Estonian cargo ship in the Black Sea was sunk by a Russian mine during this war.19 More recently, in February 2023, Turkish media claimed that a drifting sea mine exploded near Agva on the Black Sea coast.20

The ability of the U.S. Navy to deal with the growing threat of sea mines is not getting better, it is getting worse. The platforms that embody the U.S. Navy’s primary mine countermeasures (MCM) capability—the MH-53E AMCM aircraft and the Avenger-class minesweeper—are scheduled to retire in the next few years, which will leave the totality of the Navy’s MCM capability in the discrete number of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) to be outfitted with the Mine Countermeasures mission package, which has suffered multiple delays during testing and development.

This is not the MCM capability needed by a global navy facing a pervasive mine threat. Nor is it a solution that eliminates the extreme danger to Sailors who are forced to work in a minefield to accomplish their mission, especially when the minefield is overlayed with the advanced anti-ship and anti-air capabilities of a great power adversary. Fortunately, technology has advanced to the point that with the proper commitment the Navy can conduct MCM remotely by leveraging unmanned systems and take the Sailor out of the minefield.

Leveraging Unmanned Technologies to Defeat Deadly Sea Mines

For all navies, there is only one way to completely take the Sailor out of the minefield and that is to leverage unmanned technologies to hunt and destroy mines from a distance. While this principle is readily acknowledged, it is not a lack of need that has impeded the Navy’s efforts, but rather technological maturity. In the past, unmanned vehicle technologies were not mature enough to take on the complex task of mine hunting. But today, they are now capable enough. These capabilities are no longer based on concepts or early prototypes. Rather, every necessary component has been in the water and tested in operational environments. 

The following proposal is based on three subcomponent candidates that can deliver a single-sortie, autonomous mine countermeasures solution with autonomous target recognition. This design can also flexibly accommodate various towed sonars and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).

The MARTAC Devil Ray T38 is intended as the autonomous platform for the package, and will host a communications and data transmission hub, in addition to above-water and underwater sensors.

The ThayerMahan Sea Scout Subsea Imaging System is specifically designed for missions such as mine hunting. The Sea Scout system is based on the in-production COTS Kraken Robotics Katfish-180 tow-body mounted synthetic aperture sonar. The system is designed to search for mine-like objects and is integrated by ThayerMahan’s remote operations and communications system.

The Pluto Gigas is an existing, standalone, third generation ROV with several systems deployed globally and with over 3,000 mines destroyed. The Pluto Gigas deploys an acoustically armed and detonated countermine charge that is low-cost both in production and in logistics and sustainment. Several charges can be loaded onto the T38 to enable single-sortie field clearance.

These three components can combine to deliver an effective mine hunting solution. The driving principle of this solution is to incorporate mature hardware that will minimize risk to the host platform during execution of the MCM mission. To that end, the weight and outside dimensions of the mission package are within a few inches of the dimensions of a common 11-meter RHIB. Launch and recovery should be easily accomplished using standard naval small craft handling procedures for the host vessel.

While this MCM solution is component agnostic, the leading commercial-off-the-shelf candidates for the initial solution were chosen based on their technical maturity, as well as their current use by various navies. Leveraging these commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) systems will enable this MCM solution to move forward at an accelerated pace to speedily deliver a fleet capability in the near term.

The Need to Take Action Today to Address the MCM Challenge 

Because ships and Sailors operate daily in harm’s way, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps—and by extension other allied navies—would be well-served to accelerate their efforts to deal with deadly sea mines. The essential components for such a system exist today, and a robust COTS MCM solution can reach fruition in the near-term.

While programs of record are developing next-generation technology, navies should invest in parallel-path solutions that leverage mature subsystems that are ready to provide capability today. It is time to put a speedy solution in the hands of Sailors.

To achieve victory, navies must get to the fight in the face of anti-access area denial capabilities of adversaries. Given the low cost, ease of deployment, and increasing proliferation of naval mines, the ability to find and clear these deadly mines makes for a major pacing challenge for navies. Developing and fielding mine countermeasures capabilities, overlooked for too long, should be a first order priority for navies today.

Captain George Galdorisi is a career naval aviator and national security professional. His 30-year career as a naval aviator culminated in 14 years of consecutive service as executive officer, commanding officer, commodore, and chief of staff. He enjoys writing, especially speculative fiction about the future of warfare. He is the author of 18 books, including four consecutive New York Times bestsellers. His latest book, published by the U.S. Naval Institute, is Algorithms of Armageddon: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Future Wars.

This article appears courtesy of CIMSEC and may be found in its original form here. 

References

[1] Tyler Rogoway, “The Revolutionary War Gave Birth to the Age of Naval Mine Warfare,” The War Zone, July 4, 2016, accessed at: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/4256/the-revolutionary-war-gave-birth-to-the-age-of-naval-mine-warfare.

[2] Christopher Hevey and Anthony Pollman, “Reimagine Offensive Mining, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, January 2021.

[3] Farragut’s boldness is especially striking because in 1862 a Confederate mine sank USS Cairo in the Yazoo River.

[4] U.S. Navy Fact File, “U.S. Navy Mines,” accessed at: https://www.navy.mil/Resources/Fact-Files/Display-FactFiles/Article/2167942/us-navy-mines/.

[5] See, for example, Paul Ahn, “A Tale of Two Straits,” U.S. Naval Institute Naval History Magazine, December 2020 for a concise history of naval mine warfare.

[6] “NATO Forces Clear Mines off Port of Dieppe,” The Maritime Executive, April 9, 2020, accessed at: https://www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/royal-navy-clears-mines-off-port-of-dieppe.

[7] US Navy Fact File, “US Navy Mines,” accessed at https://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=2100&tid=1200&ct=2).

[8] “Surface Forces: Mines Revisited,” Strategy Page, March 13, 2020, accessed at: https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsurf/articles/20200313.aspx

[9] Scott Truver, “Taking Mines Seriously: Mine Warfare in China’s Near Seas,” Naval War College Review, Spring 2012, accessed at:

https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1429&context=nwc-review.

[10] Yasmin Tadjdeh, “Navy Invests in New Mine Warfare Technology,” National Defense Magazine (online), April 6, 2020, accessed at: https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/4/6/navy-invests-in-new-mine-warfare-technology.

[11] Edward Lundquist, “Tanker Loading Crude Damaged by Floating Mine in Yemen,” Seapower, October 9, 2020, accessed at: https://seapowermagazine.org/tanker-loading-crude-damaged-by-floating-mine-in-yemen/.

[12] Ryan White, “Greek-Operated Tanker Damaged by Mine at Saudi Terminal,” Naval News, November 25, 2020, accessed at: https://navalnews.net/greek-operated-tanker-damaged-by-mine-at-saudi-terminal/.

[13] Sam Chambers, “Hafnia Tanker at Jeddah Becomes Latest Mine Victim,” Splash 247.com, December 14, 2020, accessed at: https://splash247.com/hafnia-tanker-at-jeddah-becomes-latest-mine-victim/.

[14] “Oil Tanker Near Iraq Finds Mine on Hull as Gulf Risks Mount,” Newsmax, January 4, 2021, accessed at: https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/cos-exe-gen-gov/2021/01/01/id/1003892/.

[15] “Saudi, UK, U.S. Naval Forces Conduct Mine Countermeasures Training,” Defense-Aerospace, November 29, 2020, accessed at: https://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/214552/saudi%2C-uk%2C-u.s.-naval-forces-conduct-mine-countermeasures-training.html.

[16] Naval News Staff, “U.S. France and UK Complete Artemis Trident MCM Exercise in Gulf,” Naval News, April 13, 2023.

[17] “Weapons: Naval Mines in The Black Sea,” Strategy Page, February 2, 2023, accessed at: https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htweap/articles/20230202.aspx.

[18] Gerrard Kaonga, “Russia Mines River as Soldiers Prepare Kherson Retreat: Kyiv,” Newsweek, October 25, 2002.

[19] Scott Savitz, “The Drifting Menace,” Real Clear Defense, (undated), accessed at: https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/11/16/the_drifting_menace_865111.html.

[20] Tayfun Ozberk, “Sea Mine Explodes on Turkey’s Black Sea Coast,” Naval News, February 14, 2023.

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

 

Killing Humanitarians: Israel’s War on Aid Workers in Gaza

by Binoy Kampmark / April 3rd, 2024

Eulogies should rarely be taken at face value.  Plaster saints take the place of complex individuals; faults transmute into golden virtues.  But there was little in the way of fault regarding Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom’s messianic purpose, whose tireless work for the charity, World Central Kitchen (WCK) in northern Gaza had not gone unnoticed.  Sadly, the Australian national, along with six other members of WCK, were noticed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) around midnight of April 1 and 2 and targeted in a strike that killed all of them.

Other members of the slain crew included Polish citizen Damian Sobol, three British nationals whose names are yet to be released, a US-Canadian dual citizen, and the driver and translator Saif Abu Taha.

The charity workers had been unloading food supplies from Cyprus that had been sent via sea in a designated “deconflicted” area.  All three vehicles, two armoured and one “soft skin”, sported the WCK logo.  Even more galling for the charity was the fact that coordinating efforts between WCK and the IDF had taken place as it left the Deir al-Balah warehouse, where the individuals had been responsible for uploading over 100 tonnes of humanitarian food aid.

On April 2, Haaretz reported that three missiles had been fired in rapid succession at the convoy by a Hermes 450 UAV on direction of a unit guarding the aid transport route.  The troops in question claimed to have spotted what they thought was an armed figure riding a truck that had entered one of the aid storage areas with three WCK vehicles.  The armed figure, presumed to be a Hamas militant, never left the warehouse in the company of the vehicles.

In a public relations war Israel is increasingly losing, various statements of variable quality and sincerity could only confirm that fact.  IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari stated that he had spoken to WCK founder Chef José Andrés “and expressed the deepest condolences of the Israel Defense Forces to the families and the entire World Central Kitchen family.”

Hagari went on to add the IDF’s expression of “sincere sorrow to our allied nations who have been doing and continue to do so much to assist those in need.”  This was a bit rich given the programmatic efforts of the IDF and Israeli officials to stifle and strangulate the provision of aid into the Gaza Strip, from the logistical side of keeping land crossings closed and delaying access to existing ones, to aggressive efforts to defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

As for the operation itself, Hagari announced that “the highest levels” of military officialdom had been “reviewing the incident” to comprehend the circumstances that led to the deaths.  “We will get to the bottom of this and we will share our findings transparently.”  Again exalting the prowess of his organisation in investigating such matters, he promised that the army’s General Staff Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism – yet another independent body designed to give the impression of thoroughness and impartiality – would look into this “serious incident” to “reduce the risk of such an event from occurring again.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a better barometric reading of the mood, and it was certainly not one of grieving or feeling aggrieved.  The killings had merely been “a tragic instance of our forces unintentionally harming innocent people in the Gaza Strip.  It happens in war.”  Israel would “investigate it” and had been “in contact with the governments and we will do everything we can so that it doesn’t happen again.”

This is mightily optimistic given the butcher’s toll of 173 aid workers from UNRWA alone, with 196 humanitarians said to have died as of March 20, 2024 since October 7 last year.  Aid workers have been killed in IDF strikes despite the regular provision of coordinates on their locations.  Be it through reckless indifference, conscious intent, or a lack of competence, the morgues continue to be filled with humanitarian workers.

A bristling CEO of WCK, Erin Gore, proved blunter about the implications of the strike.  “This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organisations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war.”

Project HOPE’s Executive Vice President, Chris Skopec, drew attention to the obvious, yet repeatedly neglected fact in the Gaza conflict that aid workers are protected by international humanitarian law.  Gaza had become “one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a humanitarian worker.  This is unacceptable and demands accountability through the International Criminal Court.”

Responsibility for the killings is unlikely to translate into accountability, let alone any public outing of the individuals involved.  This is not to say that such exercises are impossible, even with Israel not being a member of the International Criminal Court.  The pageantry of guilt can still be pursued.

When Malaysian Airlines MH17 was downed over Ukraine in July 2014 by a Buk missile, killing all 298 on board, international efforts of terrier-like ferocity were initiated against those responsible for the deadly feat.  The MH17 Joint Investigation Team (JIT), comprising the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, Belgium and Ukraine, identified the missile as having come from the 53^rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian armed forces from Kursk.  Four suspects were identified.  Of the four, one was acquitted, with the district Court of The Hague handing down three life sentences in November 2022 along with an order to pay over €16 million in compensation to the victims.  The individuals remain at large, and the Kremlin largely unmoved, but the point was made.

In this case, any hope for seeking an external accounting for the event is likely to be kept in-house.  Excuses of error and misidentification are already filling press releases and conferences.  Doing so will enable the IDF to continue its program of quashing the Palestinian cause while pursuing an undisclosed war against those it considers, publicly or otherwise, to be its ameliorating collaborators.  With an announcement by various humanitarian groups, including WCK, Anera and Project Hope, that their operations will be suspended following the killings, starvation, as a policy in Gaza, can receive its official blessing.

The Baltimore Bridge Collapse: Conspiracy as Mother’s Milk

by Binoy Kampmark / April 1st, 2024

The human mind is often incapable of tolerating the limitless nature of a universe, the absence of a divine architect, or appreciate that intended designs may be absent when it comes to events awful, ghastly and catastrophic.  A disaster with some human agency is bound to have arisen because of a constructed plan, a template to harm, a scheme to injure.

The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was another event to befuddle those searching for the plan.  The Singaporean-flagged MV Dali container ship lost power on March 26 and collided with the bridge in the early morning, causing the dramatic destruction of the bridge and the deaths of six construction workers who fell into the Patapsco River.

The authorities were quick to scotch notions of foul play. FBI Baltimore stated that there was “no specific and credible information to suggest any ties to terrorism at this time.  The investigation is ongoing.”  President Joe Biden, while betraying confusion about whether he ever travelled by train over the bridge or not – an impressive feat if so, given that the bridge never had train lines – described it as “a terrible accident.  At this time, we have no other indication – no other reason to believe there was any intentional act here.”

The Kraken of conspiracy had, however, been unleashed.  Andrew Tate, the Count of Online Misogyny, was quick to the digital podium in suggesting a cyberattack.  In a post of breathless excitement, he notes how the “Lights go off and it deliberately steers towards the bridge supports.”  For the influencer facing charges of human trafficking, forming an organised crime group, and sexual assault in Romania, this was the work of “Foreign agents of the USA”.  With apocalyptic flavour, he declared that a “Black Swan event” was imminent.

With tearing speed, former security advisors and current political representatives made their offerings of conspiratorial theory.  Former US national security advisor Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about meetings with Russia’s ambassador to the United States leading up to Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, added his own agreement with Tate.  “Black swans normally come out of the world of finance (not military) … There are harbor masters for every single one of these transit ports in America that are in charge of assuring the safety of navigation … start there.”  How exciting.

Former Florida state congressman Anthony Sabatini preferred a vaguer, more intangible culprit, identifying the enemy ideologically.  It all came down to a policy of diversity, equity and inclusion, with the insinuation that the swarthy types were responsible.  “DEI,” he stated with certainty, “did this.”  Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) worried whether this was “an intentional attack or an accident” and demanded an investigation, the very thing happening even as she bloviated on the subject.

Almost on cue, culturally charged theories began to froth and bubble.  Matt Wallace, yet another cerebrally overheated influencer with 1.6 million followers, drew a comparison (and connection) between the collapse of the bridge and the Obama produced Netflix film Leave the World Behind, which featured a cargo shipping losing power and running aground on the coast of Long Island.

In the film, the ship’s destination is Sri Lanka.  The country’s national flag sports a lion.  The MV Dali’s destination?  Sri Lanka.  The name of the cargo vessel in the film?  White Lion.  Celluloid could be effortlessly married to harmful plot and wicked design, or what another overly exercised social media user drunk on Christ and premonition liked to call “predictive programming”.

On CNN, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was trying to calm matters.  “We’re in the business of dealing with roads and bridges and sometimes ships and trains.  So we are not in the habit as a Department of Transportation, of being in the business of dealing with conspiracies, or conspiracy theories or that kind of wild thinking.  But unfortunately, it is a fact of life in America today.”  This, at best, is an airy reading of history.

The lifespan of the US Republic has been one of numbing conspiracy.  In the land of Hope and Glory, with Freedom’s wash, conspiracy is mother’s milk.  The Salem witch trials in Massachusetts pointed to Satan’s industrious work; the fledgling republic feared the clandestine seizure of power from within by well organised European elites.  In the 1800 presidential race, rumours were sown by the Federalist Party that the wily Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican, was a closeted atheist keen on handing over the new state to France on his election.  Jefferson won, and far from surrendering territory to France, doubled the size of the US with the purchase, from France, of 828,000 square miles.

At its creation during the Cold War, the John Birch Society, after ventilating about global communist conspiracy and home-grown threats, redirected its focus to the fanciful conspiracy that the United Nations was keen on world government and trimming US sovereignty.  This was much too flattering: the UN is rarely united and more akin to a collection of fractious tribes in permanent disagreement.

The problem with conspiratorial overheating is that the residual ash in the incineration can provide clues to something distantly plausible.  This is helped by the fact that governments and state institutions have not been shy in breaching the social contract with the citizenry.  The deep state notion, for instance, is laughed off by the very people who represent such interests and regard it as a crank’s viewpoint.

Fundamentally, there is no need for conspiracy when there is a consensus, an understanding of agreed-upon facts and agreed-upon hierarchies of power.  But as for such calamities as befell the Francis Scott Key Bridge, never let human imbecility, incompetence and error off the hook.  To misjudge is to be human.

Kategate: From Conspiracy to Contrition Extraction

by Binoy Kampmark / March 31st, 2024

Cancer is a stomping bugger of a disease.  It seeks the worm-ridden end, a thief finding its way into your body unasked and willingly helping itself.  This cellular mass army will, in a most tribal way, make off with your remains chance permitting. So, it’s understandable that people speak about it.  Blog, discuss, worry, grieve and gather in the digital house square.  But not all grief and its content are ever the same.

The recent obsession with Catherine, the Princess of Wales, who many still see as Kate Middleton, is a fitful reminder that no one’s business is seemingly everybody’s, especially when it comes to the royals.  When she had abdominal surgery in mid-January, her absence from public life prompted a feverish, fitful obsession, something described with a certain deliciousness by Helen Lewis as “QAnon for White Moms”.

Social media wags and fanatics, evidently finding this royal retreat into silence infuriating, brainstormed their way to the most drearily absurd notions.  If true, virtually none would have made the slightest difference in the war ravaged, climate distempered world.  Had Catherine received a Brazilian butt lift?  Had Prince William made a dash from his marital vows to shack up with the Marchioness of Cholmondeley?

Some of this was aided by an overly keen interest in the release of a photo on March 11 by Kensington Palace for Mother’s Day.  Featuring the princess and her three children, the photo seemed to show signs of tampering, evidenced by blurring and misalignment.  News outlets and wire services, including the Associated Press, retracted the image.  “At closer inspection, it appears that the source has manipulated the image,” came the grave advisory from AP.  “No replacement photo will be sent.”

All this fuss, despite tech behemoths openly encouraging the mendacious sprucing up of family shots.  With a keen, digitally tampering eye, a child’s scowl and scorn can be airbrushed, leaving portraits of family bliss.  The manipulation became yet another opportunity for the fanning of online flames.  As for the princess, she conceded that, “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing.”

At the Spectator, Brendan O’Neill stated the obvious point that both plot and proportion had been lost in the entire Kate Middleton saga.  “There’s a war in Europe and the Middle East, an energy crisis, a lame-duck government waddling to defeat and people waiting five days in A&E to see a nurse, and you’re still yapping about a princess slightly misaligning her daughter’s sleeve while editing a family photo?”

With a purplish spike in conspiracy theories about what the princess was up to, British academics and wonks detected signs of foreign interference, with customary finger pointing at Russian groups.  Here was something everyone could earn their crust from, and Martin Inness of Cardiff University was not going to let it pass, claiming he and his team had identified no fewer than 45 accounts posting about the princess linked to a Russian disinformation operation called Doppelgänger.  “It’s about destabilisation. It’s about undermining trust in institutions: government, monarchy, media – everything.”

With “Kategate” now a raging social media fire, feeding much lazy journalism and the attention-seeking blogosphere, it fell upon Catherine to seize the day and reorient the interest.  The silence, she revealed on March 22, had been occasioned not merely by convalescence but her cancer diagnosis and pursuing a course of “preventative chemotherapy”: “As you can imagine, it has taken me time to recover from major surgery in order to start my treatment.  But most importantly, it has taken us time to explain everything to George, Charlotte and Louis in a way that is appropriate for them.”

The compass rapidly turned.  Naming, shaming and excessive contrition became the order of the day.  The Palace was blamed for its fumbles.  The princess was defended for having suffered silently while being forced into revealing her diagnosis.  “As someone who speculated on this without considering it could be a serious health condition,” political pundit and author Owen Jones effused, “I’m very ashamed to be honest, and all the very best to her.”

There was precedent for such an attitudinal shift.  It resembled, at least in echo, the Diana phenomenon.  The death of the Princess of Wales in August 1997 in a car crash turned her into saintly untouchability, all prior blemishes erased.  Only a few days prior to her demise in Paris with the tawdry playboy Dodi, son of Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, she had been mocked for her fickleness and shallowness.  With her death, the lachrymose glands were heavily exercised.  Competitive grieving was the order of the day, and those not partaking were tarred and feathered.

The difference now is that Catherine had been canny in democratising her condition – a mother, and a young one at that, suffering cancer.  Despite having access to medical care and resources the common citizenry could only dream of, many could relate.  She became the topic of serious, sometimes ludicrous discussion on such light end television programs as Channel 4’s The Last Leg, with all three hosts seeking to milk the tear ducts.  The anchor, Australian comedian Adam Hills, spoke of the day as having been “strange … for all of us” before reflecting on the dying days of his father.

It would have been particularly strange for Hills, as only one week prior, he had begun the show sitting beside a book titled Photoshop for Dummies.  “I’ve never seen our office WhatsApp group get as excited this week by this story.”  He proceeded to bore his audience for a good quarter hour with the usual inanities about “the case of the missing princess”.

In the wash up, Catherine, if not her advisors, should have recounted the words of the late novelist Hilary Mantel, whose “Royal Bodies” (2013) in the London Review of Books said with brutal honesty what royals, especially of a certain type, are good for.  From “a shop-window mannequin, with no personality of her own, entirely defined by what she wore,” Kate Middleton had become “a mother-to-be, and draped in another set of threadbare attributions.”  In time, she would be deemed radiant, the press finding “that this young woman’s life until now was nothing, her only point and purpose being to give birth.”  To that can now be added another limb: a contrition extractor, farmer of sympathy and tears.

Starvation in Gaza: The World Court’s Latest Intervention

by Binoy Kampmark / March 29th, 2024

Rarely has the International Court of Justice been so constantly exercised by one topic during a short span of time.  On January 26, the World Court, considering a filing made the previous December by South Africa, accepted Pretoria’s argument that the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was applicable to the conflict in so far as Israel was bound to observe it in its military operations against Hamas in Gaza.  (The judges will determine, in due course, whether Israel’s actions in Gaza meet the genocidal threshold.)  By 15-2, the judges noted that “the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at serious risk of deteriorating further before the Court renders its final judgment.”

At that point 26,000 Palestinians had perished, much of Gaza pummelled into oblivion, and 85% of its 2.3 million residents expelled from their homes.  Measures were therefore required to prevent “real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused to the rights found by the Court to be plausible, before it gives its final decision.”

Israel was duly ordered to take all possible measures to prevent the commission of acts under Article II of the Genocide Convention; prevent and punish “the direct and public incitement to genocide” against the Gaza populace; permit basic services and humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip; ensure the preservation of, and prevent destruction of, evidence related to acts committed against Gaza’s Palestinians within Articles II and III of the Convention; and report to the ICJ on how Israel was abiding by such provisional measures within a month.  The balance sheet on that score has been uneven at best.

Since then, the slaughter has continued, with the Palestinian death toll now standing at 32,300.  The Israelis have refused to open more land crossings into Gaza, and continue to hamper aid going into the strip, even as they accuse aid agencies and providers of being tardy and dishonest.  Their surly defiance of the United States has seen air drops of uneven, negligible success (the use of air to deliver aid has always been a perilous exercise).  When executed, these have even been lethal to the unsuspecting recipients, with reported cases of parachutes failing to open.

On March 25, the UN Security Council, after three previous failed attempts, passed Resolution 2728, thereby calling for an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan “leading to a lasting sustainable” halt to hostilities, the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”, “ensuring humanitarian access to address their medical and other humanitarian needs” and “demands that the parties comply with their obligations under international law in relation to all persons they detain”.

Emphasis was also placed on “the urgent need to expand the flow of humanitarian assistance to and reinforce the protection of civilians in the entire Gaza Strip”.  The resolution further demands that all barriers regarding the provision of humanitarian assistance, in accordance with international humanitarian law, be lifted.

Since January, South Africa has been relentless in its efforts to curb Israel’s Gaza enterprise in The Hague.  It called upon the ICJ on February 14, referring to “the developing circumstances in Rafah”, to urgently exercise powers under Article 75 of the Rules of Court.  Israel responded on February 15.  The next day, the ICJ’s Registrar transmitted to the parties the view of the Court that the “perilous situation” in the Gaza Strip, but notably in Rafah, “demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the Court in its Order of 26 January 2024”.

Throughout the following month, more legal jostling and communication took place, with Pretoria requesting on March 6 that the ICJ “indicate further provisional measures and/or to modify” those ordered on January 26.  The application was prompted by the “horrific deaths from starvation of Palestinian children, including babies, brought about by Israel’s deliberate acts and omissions … including Israel’s concerted attempts since 26 January 2024 to ensure the defunding of [the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and Israel’s attacks on starving Palestinians seeking to access what extremely limited humanitarian assistance Israel permits into Northern Gaza, in particular”.

Israel responded on March 15 to the South African communication, rejecting the claims of starvation arising from deliberate acts and omissions “in the strongest terms”.  The logic of the sketchy rebuttal from Israel was that matters had not materially altered since January 26 to warrant a reconsideration: “the difficult and tragic situation in the Gaza Strip in the last weeks could not be said to materially change the considerations upon which the Court based its original decision concerning provisional measures.”

On March 28, the Court issued a unanimous order modifying the January interim order.  Combing through the ghoulish evidence, the judges noted an updated report from March 18 on food insecurity from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Global Initiative (IPC Global Initiative) stating that “conditions necessary to prevent Famine have not been met and the latest evidence confirms that Famine is imminent in the northern governorates and projected to occur anytime between mid-March and May 2024.”  The UN Children’s Fund had also reported that 31 per cent of children under 2 years of age in the northern Gaza Strip were enduring conditions of “acute malnutrition”.

In the face of this Himalaya of devastation, the Court could only observe “that Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing a risk of famine, as noted in the Order of 26 January 2024, but that famine is setting in, with at least 31 people, including 27 children, having already died of malnutrition and dehydration”.  There were “unprecedented levels of food insecurity experienced by Palestinians in the Gaza strip over recent weeks, as well as the increasing risks of epidemics.”

Such “grave” conditions granted the Court jurisdiction to modify the January 26 order which no longer fully addressed “the consequences arising from the changes in the situation”.  In view of the “worsening conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza, in particular the spread of famine and starvation”, Israel should take “all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, in full cooperation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance”.

The list of what is needed is also enumerated: food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene, sanitation requirements, and “medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza, including by increasing the capacity and number of land crossing points and maintaining them open for as long as necessary”.

A less reported aspect of the March 28 order, passed by fifteen votes to one, was that Israel’s military refrain from committing “acts which constitute a violation of any rights of the Palestinians in Gaza as a protected group” under the Genocide Convention “including by preventing, through any action, the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance.”

In this, the Court points to the possible, and increasingly plausible nexus, between starvation, famine and deprivation of necessaries as state policies with the intent to injure and kill members of a protected group.  It is no doubt something that will weigh heavily on the minds of the judges as they continue mulling over the nature of the war in Gaza, which South Africa continues to insist is genocidal in scope and nature.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

'Troublemakers' Block Amazon HQ Over Plan to Link Data Centers With Gas Pipeline


"Amazon is breaking its Climate Pledge by powering new data centers with fracked gas," said one member of the new activist group. "So we came to demand that they honor the pledge."


Members of the Troublemakers activist group block an entrance to Amazon's headquarters in Seattle on March 27, 2024.
(Photo: The Troublemakers)

BRETT WILKINS
Mar 27, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

A recently formed group of climate activists on Wednesday shut down entrances to Amazon's downtown Seattle headquarters to protest the tech titan's plans to link some of its data centers with an upgraded fracked gas pipeline.

Members of the Troublemakers—who describe themselves as "an ever-growing community of people who are committed to taking action for life on Earth"—blockaded the doors to the Day 1 Building on 7th Ave. in opposition to Amazon Web Services' (AWS) plan to connect three data centers near Boardman, Oregon to TC Energy's Gas Transmission Northwest (GTN) XPress Project.

As Common Dreamsreported last October, GTN XPress, which has been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, would upgrade compressor stations in Kootenai County, Idaho; Sherman County, Oregon; and Walla Walla County, Washington. TC Energy plans to boost the 60-year-old pipeline's capacity by 150 million cubic feet of fracked gas by increasing the conduit's pressure.


"The decision to use fracked gas from the GTN XPress adds to Amazon's carbon emissions problems," the Troublemakers said in a statement. "Amazon's 2022 carbon emissions totaled 71.27 million metric tons, marking an 18% rise from 2020 and a 40% surge since 2019, the year Amazon unveiled its Climate Pledge. This alarming trend is in stark contrast to the global imperative to halve emissions by 2030."

The group wrote in a March 19 letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy:
Amazon prides itself on innovation. Using fossil fuel is not innovation... It is relying on a dying technology that is killing the planet. Utilizing GTN XPress would increase Amazon's carbon footprint and contribute greatly to climate change... We urge you to publicly commit to financing solar or wind projects to provide clean energy for Amazon's operations, and reject the GTN XPress.

The Troublemakers are calling on Amazon to:Publicly renounce the plan to connect to GTN XPress;
Commit to not powering AWS data centers with fossil fuels; and
Commit to using 100% renewable energy in each operation while funding wind and solar generation, storage, and distribution.

"We see Amazon's greenwashing every time we pass by Climate Pledge Arena," said Troublemaker Valerie Costa, who was referring to the home of the Seattle Kraken and Seattle Storm professional sports franchises. "Until Amazon drops its plan to buy fracked gas from GTN XPress, we'll keep showing up. Every fossil fuel project in the [Pacific Northwest] will be met with fierce resistance."

Leonard Sklar, a scientist and Troublemaker, asserted that "Amazon is breaking its Climate Pledge by powering new data centers with fracked gas. So we came to demand that they honor the pledge."

"We know they have the power to be 100% renewable energy," he added, "and that's what this moment requires."

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M

US SEC seeks $2 billion from Ripple Labs, chief legal officer says

Updated Mon, March 25, 2024

FILE PHOTO: The seal of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is seen at their headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 12, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/

By Jody Godoy

(Reuters) -The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking fines and penalties totaling $2 billion in its case against Ripple Labs over sales of the cryptocurrency XRP, the company's chief legal officer said in a social media post on Monday.

In posts on X, Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty said the regulator has asked U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan for the penalties in court papers filed under seal. The SEC was scheduled to file the documents publicly with redactions on Tuesday.

"Rather than faithfully apply the law, the SEC remains bent on wanting to punish and intimidate Ripple - and the industry at large," Alderoty said.

A spokesperson for the SEC declined to comment.

Torres ruled in July that the blockchain company's sale of XRP worth $728.9 million to hedge funds and other sophisticated buyers amounted to unlawful sales of unregistered securities.

Ripple is scheduled to file a reply in April.

The SEC sued Ripple, its CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen in 2020, accusing them of illegally raising more than $1.3 billion in an unregistered securities offering by selling XRP.

The SEC dropped its remaining claims against Garlinghouse and Larsen in October.

The case has been highly watched, as it is among the biggest brought by the SEC in the cryptocurrency space.

While the SEC partly won the case, Torres dealt the regulator a high-profile setback when she ruled that XRP Ripple sold on public cryptocurrency exchanges did not meet the legal definition of a security.

Torres denied the SEC's request to repeal that ruling while the case is in progress. But the regulator may appeal once the judge decides its request for penalties.

Other crypto companies facing SEC lawsuits, including major exchanges Coinbase and Binance, have pointed to Torres' ruling in urging other judges to dismiss the regulator's claims.

While the SEC has depicted most cryptocurrencies as the same kind of investment that has been classified as securities for decades, the industry has argued securities laws do not fit digital assets and called for new laws and regulations.

(Reporting by Jody Godoy; Editing by Paul Simao and Marguerita Choy)

US charges KuCoin crypto exchange with anti-money laundering failures

Reuters
Tue, March 26, 2024


(Reuters) -Federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Tuesday charged KuCoin, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, with violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws by failing to vet customers, allowing billions of dollars in illicit funds to be transferred since its founding in 2017.

Prosecutors said the Seychelles-based exchange sought business from U.S. customers without registering with the Treasury Department and putting in place procedures to verify clients' identities as required by U.S. law.

KuCoin posted on social media site X that customer assets are safe and its lawyers are looking into the allegations.

"KuCoin respect the laws and regulations of various countries and strictly adheres to compliance standards," it said.

Prosecutors also charged the exchange's founders, Chinese nationals Chun Gan, 34, and Ke Tang, 39, with conspiracy. They remain at large, according to prosecutors.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission separately filed a civil lawsuit against KuCoin alleging it failed to register its futures and swaps activities with the regulator.

KuCoin in December agreed to block New York users from its platform and pay $22 million to settle the state's lawsuit accusing it of failing to register there.

KuCoin trails Binance, Coinbase and Kraken among cryptocurrency spot exchanges on factors including traffic, liquidity and trading volumes, according to the data company CoinMarketCap.

(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Costas Pitas)

Octopus in talks to help power Ukraine after Russia smashes grid

Matt Oliver
Sun, 28 January 2024 

Greg Jackson: ‘The UK can learn from Ukraine’s impressive ability to built energy infrastructure so quickly – and under fire’ - Andrew Crowley

British energy supplier Octopus is in talks to help power Ukraine as the country rebuilds its electricity grid following Vladimir Putin’s bombing onslaught.

The company has held exploratory talks with Kyiv-based DTEK, Ukraine’s biggest private energy company, about how the two businesses can work together.

It is understood this could potentially include Octopus licensing its groundbreaking Kraken energy management software to DTEK or even going one step further and forming a joint venture with the company, as Octopus has done with energy providers in other markets such as Japan.

The discussions come amid a long-running Russian bombing campaign to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, with the aim of depriving the public of power or heat during the coldest winter months.

Russia’s efforts have galvanised support in Ukraine for renewable energy, with the more distributed nature of wind turbines and solar panels making them smaller targets than large coal power stations.

Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus, held initial discussions with Maxim Timchenko, DTEK’s chief executive, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland earlier this month.

Mr Timchenko met Octopus Energy’s Jackson at Davos - Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg

Both men stressed talks are at an early stage but were enthusiastic about the potential for cooperation.

Mr Timchenko said: “We want to learn from this company [Octopus] and we want to bring this innovation to Ukraine.”

A potential deal between the two would mark yet another foreign expansion for UK household supplier Octopus, which already operates Germany, the US, Japan, Spain, Italy, France and New Zealand as well.

Many of the company’s global agreements have been propelled by demand for its Kraken software, which can manage energy assets such as wind turbines as well as customer service databases.

Kraken is now used by utility companies in 17 countries to serve 54m users.

Mr Jackson said: “Ukraine – and DTEK – has shown the agility, the speed, at which you can both upgrade and build new electricity infrastructure.

“We can learn a lot from them, for example about how they’ve been able to so quickly and so impressively do work – often under fire – that in the UK often takes five to 15 years. And if you take a decentralised system like they’ve been building, I think it’s a good example of the kind of situation where Kraken can be very effective.

“I can’t preempt where it goes. But let’s just say, I’d be delighted if we can find a way to work together in Ukraine, and in the rest of Europe.”

Following its takeover of Shell Energy last year, Octopus is now Britain’s second-biggest energy supplier with about 6.6m customers.

DTEK, meanwhile, is one of Ukraine’s biggest electricity suppliers with about 3.5m customers across the Kyiv, Donetsk and Dnipro regions.

Since the outbreak of war with Russia, the company has been scrambling to bolster its electricity grid with decentralised wind and solar farms.

It won plaudits last year for completing the construction of a wind farm in southern Ukraine, 60 miles from the frontline, in just nine months.

DTEK has also begun building renewable energy projects outside of Ukraine, with schemes online in Romania and others planned in Italy, Poland and Croatia.

Mr Timchenko said DTEK was keen to look at opportunities to deploy Octopus’ Kraken software across the business, as well as the potential for a joint venture between the two companies.

There was potential to test Octopus’ technology “outside of Ukraine as well”, he added.

SPACE

The moon is shrinking, causing landslides and instability in lunar south pole

New paper identifies potential landing sites for Artemis mission that are particularly vulnerable to quakes and landslides.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

 

VIDEO: 

SIMULATED GROUND MOTION GENERATED BY A SHALLOW MOONQUAKE LOCATED BY THE LUNAR SOUTH POLE. STRONG TO MODERATE GROUND SHAKING IS PREDICTED AT A DISTANCE OF AT LEAST ~40KM FROM THE SOURCE.

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CREDIT: NICHOLAS SCHMERR, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Earth’s moon shrank more than 150 feet in circumference as its core gradually cooled over the last few hundred million years. In much the same way a grape wrinkles when it shrinks down to a raisin, the moon also develops creases as it shrinks. But unlike the flexible skin on a grape, the moon’s surface is brittle, causing faults to form where sections of crust push against one another.

A team of scientists discovered evidence that this continuing shrinkage of the moon led to notable surface warping in its south polar region—including areas that NASA proposed for crewed Artemis III landings. Because fault formation caused by the moon’s shrinking is often accompanied by seismic activity like moonquakes, locations near or within such fault zones could pose dangers to future human exploration efforts.

In a new paper published in The Planetary Science Journal, the team linked a group of faults located in the moon’s south polar region to one of the most powerful moonquakes recorded by Apollo seismometers over 50 years ago. Using models to simulate the stability of surface slopes in the region, the team found that some areas were particularly vulnerable to landslides from seismic shaking.

“Our modeling suggests that shallow moonquakes capable of producing strong ground shaking in the south polar region are possible from slip events on existing faults or the formation of new thrust faults,” said the study’s lead author Thomas R. Watters, a senior scientist emeritus in the National Air and Space Museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies. “The global distribution of young thrust faults, their potential to be active and the potential to form new thrust faults from ongoing global contraction should be considered when planning the location and stability of permanent outposts on the moon.”

Shallow moonquakes occur near the surface of the moon, just a hundred or so miles deep into the crust. Similar to earthquakes, shallow moonquakes are caused by faults in the moon’s interior and can be strong enough to damage buildings, equipment and other human-made structures. But unlike earthquakes, which tend to last only a few seconds or minutes, shallow moonquakes can last for hours and even a whole afternoon—like the magnitude 5 moonquake recorded by the Apollo Passive Seismic Network in the 1970s, which the research team connected to a group of faults detected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter more recently.  

According to Nicholas Schmerr, a co-author of the paper and an associate professor of geology at the University of Maryland, this means that shallow moonquakes can devastate hypothetical human settlements on the moon.

“You can think of the moon’s surface as being dry, grounded gravel and dust. Over billions of years, the surface has been hit by asteroids and comets, with the resulting angular fragments constantly getting ejected from the impacts,” Schmerr explained. “As a result, the reworked surface material can be micron-sized to boulder-sized, but all very loosely consolidated. Loose sediments make it very possible for shaking and landslides to occur.”

The researchers continue to map out the moon and its seismic activity, hoping to identify more locations that may be dangerous for human exploration. NASA’s Artemis missions, which are set to launch their first crewed flight in late 2024, ultimately hope to establish a long-term presence on the moon and eventually learn to live and work on another world through moon-based observatories, outposts and settlements.

“As we get closer to the crewed Artemis mission’s launch date, it’s important to keep our astronauts, our equipment and infrastructure as safe as possible,” Schmerr said. “This work is helping us prepare for what awaits us on the moon—whether that’s engineering structures that can better withstand lunar seismic activity or protecting people from really dangerous zones.”

The epicenter of one of the strongest moonquakes recorded by the Apollo Passive Seismic Experiment was located in the lunar south polar region. However, the exact location of the epicenter could not be accurately determined. A cloud of possible locations (magenta dots and light blue polygon) of the strong shallow moonquake using a relocation algorithm specifically adapted for very sparse seismic networks are distributed near the pole. Blue boxes show the locations of proposed Artemis III landing regions. Lobate thrust fault scarps are shown by small red lines. The cloud of epicenter locations encompasses a number of lobate scarps and many of the Artemis III landing regions.

CREDIT

Credit: NASA/LRO/LROC/ASU/Smithsonian Institution

JOURNAL

The Planetary Science Journal

DOI

10.3847/PSJ/ad1332 

ARTICLE TITLE

Tectonics and Seismicity of the Lunar South Polar Region

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-Jan-2024

New satellite capable of measuring Earth precipitation from space

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JOURNAL OF REMOTE SENSING

 

IMAGE: 

VERTICAL AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF PRECIPITATION WELL CAPTURED BY FY-3G PMR

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CREDIT: DR. PENG ZHANG, NATIONAL SATELLITE METEOROLOGICAL CENTER

Measuring the amount of precipitation that falls in a specific location is simple if that location has a device designed to accurately record and transmit precipitation data. In contrast, measuring the amount and type of precipitation that falls to Earth in every location is logistically quite difficult. Importantly, this information could provide a wealth of data for characterizing and predicting Earth’s water, energy and biogeochemical cycles. Researchers from China recently deployed a satellite, FengYun 3G (FY-3G), that is successfully collecting Earth precipitation data from space.

 

Scientists from the China Meteorological Administration developed and launched a satellite created to measure Earth precipitation with radar while orbiting in space. This is the first of two precipitation missions planned by the team to accurately measure the occurrence, type and intensity of any precipitation across the world, including over oceans and complex terrain. Specifically, the FY-3G satellite is designed to assess the 3-dimensional (3D) form of rainfall and other precipitation for weather systems at Earth’s middle and lower latitudes.

 

The team published their results in the 19 December 2023 issue of the Journal of Remote Sensing.

 

“The first active precipitation measurement satellite in China (FY-3G) was developed and successfully launched, and the commission test of the satellite platform and the instruments [was] completed, illustrating excellent performance. The active and passive microwave instruments combined with optical imaging instruments… obtain high-precision observation data of global precipitation. The satellite can also cooperate with the on-orbit Global Position Measurement (GPM) satellite to enhance the ability of scientists to study the structure and mechanism of global precipitation as well as carry out water cycle research,” said Peng Zhang, first author of the review paper and leading scientist of the FY-3 polar orbiting meteorological satellite program at the National Satellite Meteorological Center in Beijing, China.

 

FY-3G marks the first rainfall satellite mission from China and the third such mission in the world. The satellite can measure clouds, precipitation and atmospheric profiles with the complement of remote sensing instruments built into the satellite.

 

Specifically, the active remote sensing precipitation measurement radar (PMR) works in tandem with a passive microwave imager MWRI-RM, which has been optimized to improve the detection of weaker precipitation over land and solid forms of precipitation. An optical imaging instrument, the MERSI-RM, assists other microwave instruments in measuring clouds and precipitation to facilitate low-orbit precipitation measurement and high-orbit infrared precipitation estimation.

 

The GNOS-II instrument, also included on the satellite, uses variations in global navigation satellite system (GNSS) data to accurately measure temperature, humidity and sea surface speed from space. The FY-3G also houses an short-wave infrared polarized multi-angle imager (PMAI) and high radiometric accuracy on-board calibrator (HAOC).

 

As a precipitation measurement device, the primary instrument of the FY-3G satellite is the active precipitation measurement radar PMR, which creates a 3D rendering of falling precipitation. Data collected by the instrument can then be used to calculate precipitation intensity and type, improving the accuracy of measurements taken from space.

 

“China has successfully launched a precipitation measurement satellite [FY-3G], and the commission test results show that its measurement performance is superior, and high-precision 3D precipitation measurement information can be obtained. FY-3G and GPM can form a virtual constellation in orbit, which greatly enhances the ability to measure and study global precipitation. FY-3G global observation data are [freely available] to… worldwide users through the Fengyun Satellite Data Center,” said Zhang.

 

Importantly, FY-3G has improved our understanding of global precipitation, which will help scientists better interpret and predict our planet’s water and energy cycles. This data will be used to enhance forecasting of extreme weather events and inform the development of the program’s next generation precipitation satellite, FY-5.

 

The team is encouraged by the data they have received from FY-3G, but more data processing work is required to fully grasp the satellite’s capacity and future applications. “Next, we will accelerate the development of precipitation event database and precipitation data set based on FY-3G satellite data. We also plan to improve the quantitative inversion accuracy of active radar precipitation and strengthen the global data service of the FY-3G satellite. We will also continue to promote the follow-up satellite development plan to ensure continuous precipitation observation,” said Zhang.

 

Other contributors include Songyan Gu, Lin Chen, Jian Shang, Manyun Lin, Aijun Zhu, Honggang Yin, Qiong Wu, Yixuan Shou, Fenglin Sun, Hanlie Xu, Guanglin Yang, Haofei Wang, Lu Li, Sijie Chen and Naimeng Lu from the Key Laboratory of Radiometric Calibration and Validation for Environmental Satellites at the National Satellite Meteorological Center (National Center for Space Weather) from the China Meteorological Administration in Beijing, China and  the Innovation Center for FengYun Meteorological Satellite in Beijing, China; and HongWei Zhang from the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology in Shanghai, China.

 

This work was supported by the FY3-03 meteorological satellite project ground application system and the International Space Water Cycle Observation Constellation Program (grant no. 183311KYSB20200015).

---

JOURNAL

Journal of Remote Sensing

DOI

10.34133/remotesensing.0097 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

ARTICLE TITLE

FY-3G Satellite Instruments and Precipitation Products: First Report of China’s Fengyun Rainfall Mission In-Orbit

UTSA researchers reveal faint features in galaxy NGC 5728 though JWST image techniques

NEWS RELEASE 25-JAN-2024

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO

 

IMAGE: 

JWST OBSERVED NGC 5728 AT FIVE DISTINCT WAVELENGTHS. IN THESE OBSERVATIONS, A FAINT EXTENDED FEATURE WAS SEEN IN ONLY ONE WAVELENGTH. AS LEIST DECONVOLVED THE DATA, THE FAINT EXTENDED EMISSION FEATURE WAS REVEALED IN ALL WAVELENGTHS, DEMONSTRATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF KRAKEN DECONVOLUTION TO IMPROVE JWST IMAGE QUALITY AND ENHANCE FAINT EXTENDED EMISSION FEATURES.

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CREDIT: THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO

(SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS) — Mason Leist is working remotely—127 million light-years from Earth—on images of a supermassive black hole in his office at the UTSA Department of Physics and Astronomy.

The UTSA Graduate Research Assistant led a study, published in The Astronomical Journal, on the best method to improve images obtained by the James Webb Science Telescope (JWST) using a mathematical approach called deconvolution. He was tasked by the Galactic Activity, Torus, and Outflow Survey (GATOS), an international team of scientists, to enhance JWST observations of the galaxy NGC 5728.

The GATOS team, co-led by UTSA Professor and Leist’s doctoral advisor Chris Packham, was awarded time on the JWST for its research on black holes.

“It’s incredibly humbling,” Leist said. “Not just working with JWST data, which is a great opportunity and a crazy amount of science, but working with our collaborators. It’s a very incredible experience to collaborate with other members of the GATOS on this. I like to tell people that this work represents the efforts of 35 individuals from institutes in 14 countries.”

Leist deconvolved simulated and observed images of an active galactic nucleus (AGN), a region at the center of the galaxy NGC 5728. The central engine of an active galactic nucleus, comprised of a hot and turbulent accretion disk orbiting a central supermassive black hole enshrouded by a thick torus of gas and dust, plays a key role in feedback between the AGN, host galaxy and intergalactic medium.

He tested five deconvolution algorithms over two years on simulated observations of an AGN. Of the five methods tested, the Kraken algorithm improved the simulated AGN model image quality the most and was therefore applied to JWST observations of NGC 5728. Kraken is a high-performance multi-frame deconvolution algorithm developed by a team of researchers led by Douglas Hope and Stuart Jefferies at Georgia State University.

JWST observed NGC 5728 at five distinct wavelengths. In these observations, a faint extended feature was seen in only one wavelength. As Leist deconvolved the data, the faint extended emission feature was revealed in all wavelengths, demonstrating the effectiveness of Kraken deconvolution to improve JWST image quality and enhance faint extended emission features.

“We believe the extension could be part of an outflow from a supermassive black hole that could be interacting with the host galaxy. There’s a lot more science that needs to be done,” Leist said. “It is difficult to distinguish the extended structure in all of the JWST images, but by using deconvolution techniques, we reduced the image data to reveal the hidden faint emission feature.”

The process was also a collaboration with Willie Schaefer, UTSA’s Adobe Creative Cloud support specialist, who helped create a scientifically accurate set of color images for the study.

Leist’s work demonstrates deconvolution is an efficient and accurate tool for image processing. Similar methods, he and Packham said, can be applied to broader science cases using JWST observations. The approach has garnered significant interest from fellow scientists working on JWST image processing.

“We’re doing important work using JWST data,” Packham said. “But it’s important because we can improve on the raw data and get better image quality to see those fainter details by using this approach. It shows the strength of collaboration within the GATOS, which is co-led from UTSA.”

Leist’s work to enhance the JWST observations of the galaxy NGC 5728 is a new piece in the puzzle that further demystifies the origins of the universe. The full scope of the deconvolved images and other astrophysical results will be described in forthcoming studies currently underway by the GATOS.

“It goes back to the generation of galaxies shortly after the Big Bang,” Packham explained. “If we really want to understand our place within our own galaxy, within our own solar system and within the universe in general, we have to understand what’s going on within black holes in our galaxy and, indeed, other galaxies. We can understand the formation of our galaxy, our solar system, the earth and life on earth. It’s really part of that big picture question.”

Explore Further

Discover the UTSA Department of Physics and Astronomy and the UTSA College of Sciences.

Read about previous JWST work at UTSA.

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JOURNAL

The Astronomical Journal

ARTICLE TITLE

Deconvolution of JWST/MIRI Images: Applications to an AGN Model and GATOS Observations of NGC 5728