Latest news with #BigelowLaboratoryforOceanSciences
New York Times
29-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Corrections: April 29, 2025
A picture caption with an article about President Trump's meeting with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, misstated the day that the photo of Ukrainian troops in Donetsk was taken. It was taken on Friday, April 18, not April 25. An article on Sunday about the third round of talks between Iran and the United States over Iran's nuclear activities misstated when Iran pulled away from obligations under a nuclear agreement. It was about a year after President Trump exited the pact in 2018, not a year after the deal was reached. An article on Sunday about President Trump's executive order that aims to permit, for the first time, industrial mining of the seabed for minerals misstated the given name of a scientist at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. She is Beth Orcutt, not Bethany. An article on April 22 about China's efforts to replace its reliance on American soybeans misstated how the Chinese food company Cofco has used $500 million in investments in Brazil. The company has invested the money in various projects in Brazil, not just in the port terminal in Santos, Brazil. The article also misstated the name of a Brazilian trade group. It is the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries, not Vegetable Oil Producers. An article on Sunday about the various exhibitions and events celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence used an incorrect title for Noelle Trent. She is the president and chief executive officer of the Museum of African American History in Boston and Nantucket, Mass., not the director. An article on Sunday about one of the finest private art collections in the world owned by Henry Clay Frick provided an incorrect location for the Carnegie plant that was the site of a strike in 1892. It was located in Homestead, Pa., not Hempstead, Pa. An article on Sunday about a school lunch exhibition at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia misstated the number of students who received a free or reduced-price lunch on an average school day. According to the Food Research & Action Center's 2024 report, 19.7 million students received a free or reduced-price lunch, not 23.6 million. (About 23.6 million students were enrolled in high-poverty districts that qualify for free lunches for all.) An obituary on Monday about Alexis Herman, a Democratic Party insider who went on to become the first Black secretary of labor, misstated the name of one of Ms. Herman's survivors, a stepson. He is Charles J. Franklin, not Charles Franklin Jr. Errors are corrected during the press run whenever possible, so some errors noted here may not have appeared in all editions.
Time of India
26-04-2025
- Science
- Time of India
The Trump administration wants seafloor mining. What does that mean?
Life at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean is slow, dark and quiet. Strange creatures glitter and glow. Oxygen seeps mysteriously from lumpy, metallic rocks. There is little to disturb these deep-ocean denizens. #Pahalgam Terrorist Attack India pulled the plug on IWT when Pakistanis are fighting over water What makes this India-Pakistan standoff more dangerous than past ones The problem of Pakistan couldn't have come at a worse time for D-St "There's weird life down here," said Bethany Orcutt, a geomicrobiologist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. Research in the deep sea is incredibly difficult given the extreme conditions, and rare given the price tag. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Patna – Rediscover clear hearing with these tiny but powerful hearing aids. Learn More Undo On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that aims to permit, for the first time, industrial mining of the seabed for minerals. Scientists have expressed deep reservations that mining could irreversibly harm these deep-sea ecosystems before their value and workings are fully understood. What's down there, anyway? Live Events Seafloor mining could target three kinds of metal-rich deposits: nodules, crusts and mounds. But right now, it's all about the nodules. Nodules are of particular value because they contain metals used in the making of electronics, sophisticated weaponry, electric-vehicle batteries and other technologies needed for human development. Nodules are also the easiest seafloor mineral deposit to collect. Economically viable nodules take millions of years to form, sitting on the seafloor the whole time. A nodule is born when a resilient bit of matter, such as a shark tooth, winds up on the ocean floor. Minerals with iron, manganese and other metals slowly accumulate like a snowball. The largest are the size of a grapefruit. Life accumulates on the nodules, too. Microbial organisms, invertebrates, corals and sponges all live on the nodules, and sea stars, crustaceans, worms and other life-forms scuttle around them. About half of the known life in flat, vast expanses of seafloor called the abyssal plain live on these nodules, said Lisa Levin, an oceanographer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. But "we don't know how widespread species are, or whether if you mine one area, there would be individuals that could recolonize another place," she said. "That's a big unknown." How do you mine the sea? Two main approaches to nodule mining are being developed. One is basically a claw, scraping along the seabed and collecting nodules as it goes. Another is essentially an industrial vacuum for the sea. In both, the nodules would be brought up to ships on the surface, miles above the ocean floor. Leftover water, rock and other debris would be dropped back into the ocean. Both dredging and vacuuming would greatly disturb, if not destroy, the seafloor habitat itself. Removing the nodules also means removing what scientists think is the main habitat for organisms on the abyssal plain. Mining activities would also introduce light and noise pollution not only to the seafloor, but to the ocean surface where the ship would be. Of central concern are the plumes of sediment that mining would create, both at the seafloor and at depths around 1,000 meters, which have "some of the clearest ocean waters," said Jeffrey Drazen, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Sediment plumes, which could travel vast distances, could throw life off in unpredictable ways. Sediment could choke fish and smother filter-feeders such as shrimp and sponges. It could block what little light gets transmitted in the ocean, preventing lanternfish from finding mates and anglerfish from luring prey. And laden with discarded metals, there's also a chance it could pollute the seafood that people eat. "How likely is it that we would contaminate our food supply?" Drazen said. Before mining begins, "I really would like an answer to that question. And we don't have one now." What do mining companies say? Mining companies say that they are developing sustainable, environmentally friendly deep-sea mining approaches through research and engagement with the scientific community. Their research has included basic studies of seafloor geology, biology and chemistry, documenting thousands of species and providing valuable deep-sea photos and video. Interest in seafloor mining has supported research that might have been challenging to fund otherwise, Drazen said. Preliminary tests of recovery equipment have provided some insights into foreseeable effects of their practices such as sediment plumes, although modeling can only go so far in predicting what would happen once mining reached a commercial scale. Impossible Metals, a seafloor mining company based in California, is developing an underwater robot the size of a shipping container that uses artificial intelligence to hand pick nodules without larger organisms, an approach that it claims minimizes sediment plumes and biological disturbance. The Metals Co., a Canadian deep-sea mining company, in 2022 successfully recovered roughly 3,000 tons of nodules from the seafloor, collecting data on the plume and other effects in the process. The Metals Co. in March announced that it would seek a permit for seafloor mining through NOAA, circumventing the International Seabed Authority, the United Nations-affiliated organization set up to regulate seafloor mining. Gerard Barron, the company's CEO, said in an interview Thursday that the executive order was "not a shortcut" past environmental reviews and that the company had "completed more than a decade of environmental research." Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said the United States would abide by two U.S. laws that govern deep-sea exploration and commercial activities in U.S. waters and beyond. "Both of these laws require comprehensive environmental impact assessments and compliance with strong environmental protection standards," she said. What are the long-term risks? Many scientists remain skeptical that enough is known about seafloor mining's environmental effects to move forward. They can only hypothesize about the long-term consequences. Disrupting the bottom of the food chain could have ripple effects throughout the ocean environment. An extreme example, Drazen said, would be if sediment diluted the food supply of plankton. In that case, they could starve, unable to scavenge enough organic matter from a cloud of sea dust. Tiny plankton are a fundamental food source, directly or indirectly, for almost every creature in the ocean, including whales. Part of the challenge in understanding potential effects is that the pace of life is slow on the seafloor. Deep-sea fish can live hundreds of years. Corals can live thousands. "It's a different time scale of life," Levin said. "That underpins some of the unknowns about responses to disturbances." It's hard for humans to do 500-yearlong experiments to understand if or when ecosystems such as these can bounce back or adapt. And there are no guarantees of restoring destroyed habitats or mitigating damage on the seafloor. Unlike mining on land, "we don't have those strategies for the deep sea," Orcutt said. "There's not currently scientific evidence that we can restore the ecosystem after we've damaged it." Some scientists question the need for seafloor mining at all, saying that mines on land could meet growing demand for metals. Proponents of deep-sea mining have claimed that its environmental or carbon footprint would be smaller than traditional mining for those same minerals. "There has been no actual recovery of minerals to date," said Amy Gartman, an ocean researcher who leads the U.S. Geological Survey seabed minerals team, referring to commercial-scale mining. "We're comparing theoretical versus actual, land-based mining practices. If and when someone actually breaks ground on one of these projects, we'll get a better idea."
New York Times
25-04-2025
- Science
- New York Times
The Trump Administration Wants Seafloor Mining. What Does That Mean?
Life at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean is slow, dark and quiet. Strange creatures glitter and glow. Oxygen seeps mysteriously from lumpy, metallic rocks. There is little to disturb these deep-ocean denizens. 'There's weird life down here,' said Bethany Orcutt, a geomicrobiologist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. Research in the deep sea is incredibly difficult given the extreme conditions, and rare given the price tag. On Thursday, President Trump signed an executive order that aims to permit, for the first time, industrial mining of the seabed for minerals. Scientists have expressed deep reservations that mining could irreversibly harm these deep-sea ecosystems before their value and workings are fully understood. What's down there, anyway? Seafloor mining could target three kinds of metal-rich deposits: nodules, crusts and mounds. But right now, it's all about the nodules. Nodules are of particular value because they contain metals used in the making of electronics, sophisticated weaponry, electric-vehicle batteries and other technologies needed for human development. Nodules are also the easiest seafloor mineral deposit to collect. Mining companies are interested in the mineral-rich seabed of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone Source: U.S. Geological Survey, International Seabed Authority Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
A small amount of penguin poop is enough to spook krill
Although a single penguin is capable of devouring thousands of krill in a single sitting, swarms of the zooplankton may detect disturbances in the water ahead of mealtime. The telltale sign? Bird poop. That's what researchers at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences theorize after studying the movements of krill trawled from Antarctica's Bransfield Strait. According to their results, published March 20 in Frontiers in Marine Science, it only takes a small amount of penguin guano (poop) to influence the tiny sea creatures' behavior. 'Here we show for the first time that a small amount of penguin guano causes a sudden change in the feeding and swimming behaviors of Antarctic krill,' Nicole Hellessey, a corresponding author and postdoctoral researcher, explained in an accompanying statement. To test how krill respond to chemical evidence of nearby penguins, Hellessey and colleagues placed krill into an aquarium at Palmer Station on Antarctica's Anvers Island. They then separated out six-eight individuals and transferred them into a flume of seawater measuring 34.7 degrees Fahrenheit. To better replicate their usual environment, the team even dimmed the ambient lighting to mimic a depth of around 131 feet. Over multiple trials, researchers funnelled in seawater mixed with either algae, penguin poop, or a mixture of both while recording the results using a pair of automated cameras. Scientists then analyzed the footage based on selected krills' 3D positionality as well as the direction and speed of their swimming. The findings were clear. While krill generally swim straight upstream in what's known as rheotaxis, the presence of penguin guano appeared to immediately influence their behavior. More specifically, the krill sped up their swimming as much as 1.5 times faster than average while also making three times more turns at larger angles. The penguin poop didn't only influence krill movements. In another phase of the experiment, researchers noticed the zooplankton consumed 64 percent less algae after sensing what they thought may be nearby birds. This implies that krill engage in evasive maneuvers so much that they subsequently eat less when guano is in the water around them. 'Such behavior to escape from nearby penguins would greatly increase the krill's odds of survival,' said Hellessey. 'And these odds would increase exponentially in a swarm, if their neighbors could detect the same cues and communicate the danger to each other.' The defensive response is likely not only limited to penguins. Given the range of predators that regularly feed on krill, the team theorizes they likely exhibit similar behavior in the presence of seals, whales, and other Antarctic predators. As climate change continues to shift global ocean ecosystems, however, this detection ability may reduce a krill's chances for survival. Although the team hasn't identified the specific chemicals present in penguin poop that sends krill into a panic mode, they do know that rising acidification levels and warming temperatures could affect how the zooplankton sense danger. 'Any changes to krill's behavior could have major impacts on the future Southern Ocean, as Antarctic krill are a keystone species in this ecosystem,' Hellessey said. Regardless of further research results, one thing is apparently certain: Dealing with penguin poop is not an enjoyable experience.'Smells like rotten shellfish. Not pleasant to handle,' warned Hellessey.
