Deep-Sea Mining Stirs Up Muddy Questions: A controversial pilot program will collect metal-rich nodules from the ocean floor

IEEE Spectrum ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-57
Author(s):  
David Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Deep Sea ◽  
Ocean Floor ◽  
Pilot Program

Loss of sleep or loss of dark?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard G. Stevens
Keyword(s):  
Mood Disorders ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Short Distance ◽  
Water Surface ◽  
Ocean Floor ◽  
Physiological Adaptation ◽  
Poor Sleep ◽  
Short Period ◽  
The World ◽  
Night And Day

Before electricity, night was something akin to the deep sea: just as we could not descend much below the water surface, we also could not investigate the night for more than a short distance, and for a short period of time. Things changed with two inventions: the Bathysphere to plumb the ocean floor, and electricity to light the night for sustained exploration. Exploration led to dominance, and night has become indistinguishable from day in many parts of the world. The benefits of electric light are myriad, but so too are the possible detriments of loss of dark at night, including poor sleep, obesity, diabetes, cancer, and mood disorders. Our primordial physiological adaptation to the night and day cycle is being flummoxed by the maladaptive signals coming from electric lighting around the clock. The topic of sleep and health has finally attained scientific respect, but dark and health is not yet fully appreciated.

COMPROMISE AND ORIGINAL ACQUISITION: EXPLAINING RIGHTS TO THE ARCTIC

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cara Nine
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Geographic Area ◽  
Ocean Floor ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Human Settlement ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Original Acquisition

Abstract:Up until now, political philosophy has explained the acquisition of natural resources, in one way or another, through the terms of human settlement. An agent acquires natural resources by moving into the geographic area that contains these resources. Even how we make claims to the ocean floor depends on settlement — claimants must be adjacent to settled land. This essay extends original acquisition theories so that they can respond to cases that do not presuppose any conditions of human settlement. I suggest that resource rights in the deep sea may be created, alternatively, through acts of compromise. Compromise can alleviate conflict, allowing for claimants to move beyond stalemate to acquire goods. It also allows for a large degree of flexibility in the specification of rights, and thereby can explain nontraditional rights over areas of migration. The tricky part of a theory that grants rights through agreement is explaining why external parties, those not part of the agreement, have a duty to respect those rights. A compromise under certain conditions, I argue, places all persons under a duty to respect the rights created by the compromise. Thus, when two parties compromise, they may acquire goods from the commons — creating a duty for all others to respect the parties’ rights over these goods. Importantly, rights created through compromise are constrained by a set of concerns for those excluded.

scholarly journals Ocean Floor Observation and Bathymetry System (OFOBS): A New Towed Camera/Sonar System for Deep-Sea Habitat Surveys

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Autun Purser ◽  
Yann Marcon ◽  
Simon Dreutter ◽  
Ulrich Hoge ◽  
Burkhard Sablotny ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Deep Sea ◽  
Ocean Floor ◽  
Sonar System

scholarly journals Atmospheric Visions: Mirages, methane seeps and ‘clam-monsters’ in the Yellow Sea

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Kidder Hodges
Keyword(s):  
Yellow Sea ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Ocean Floor ◽  
The Yellow Sea ◽  
Methane Seeps ◽  
History Of ◽  
Physical Phenomena ◽  
As If

Mirages seen at sea have a long history of being interpreted as distant islands and mythological realms. Hot and cool pockets of air refracting light can make boats and islands appear as if floating in air. These atmospheric visions can be studied as physical phenomena and as cultural imaginaries, an extension of what Philip Hayward has called the aquapelagic imaginary. In alliance with Donna Haraway’s mythology-inspired Chthulucene, this article will use the Chinese folklore of the shen (蜃) (‘clam-monster’) to consider ecological issues around deep sea mining. In the ancient etiology of the shen, its breath was thought responsible for visions of Penglai, the fabled island home to the Eight Immortals believed to lie somewhere in the Yellow Sea. The search for Penglai and its rumored elixir of life has now been supplanted by exploration for methane, a largely untapped fossil fuel seeping up from the ocean floor. The clams and multi-species communities that cluster around these emissions, alongside mythological sea creatures, give shape to changing affects and atmospheres on the horizon.

Early Permian (Cisuralian) ostracods from Japan: characteristic ostracod assemblage from a seamount of the Panthalassic Ocean

Zootaxa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4515 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
GENGO TANAKA ◽  
YUKIO MIYAKE ◽  
TERUO ONO ◽  
AIHUA YUAN ◽  
MASAHIRO ICHIDA ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Deep Sea ◽  
Ocean Floor ◽  
Reef Slope ◽  
Early Permian ◽  
Southwestern Part ◽  
Central Japan ◽  
Micritic Limestones

Silicified ostracods were recovered from Cisuralian micritic limestones of the Ryozensan Limestone Formation from the southwestern part of Ryozensan Mountain, Taga City located in Shiga Prefecture, Central Japan. Twenty-seven species belonging to 19 genera were obtained, of which six species are new and are described here: Bairdia tagaensis Tanaka sp. nov., Bairdiacypris ikeyanoriyukii Tanaka sp. nov., Kellettina noriyukii Tanaka sp. nov., Microcheilinella shigensis Tanaka sp. nov., Oliganisus ryozensannensis Tanaka sp. nov., and Pustulobairdia ohmiensis Tanaka sp. nov. Some Palaeozoic limestone localities in Japan cap greenstones and are surrounded by younger cherts (such as Mino Terrane of this study). They represent a characteristic reef and reef-slope environment around a seamount surrounded by deep sea ocean floor. This result is concordant with the ostracod assemblage. After this report, a Panthalassan ostracod fauna could be defined for the Cisuralian. 

Trace fossils from Lower Palaeozoic ocean-floor sediments of the Southern Uplands of Scotland

1982 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. Benton
Keyword(s):  
Oxygen Content ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Trace Fossils ◽  
Trace Fossil ◽  
Ocean Floor ◽  
Turbidity Currents ◽  
Northern Margin ◽  
Iapetus Ocean ◽  
Lower Palaeozoic

ABSTRACTThe Ordovician and Silurian rocks of the Southern Uplands of Scotland have been interpreted as sediments deposited on the northern margin of the Iapetus Ocean. Trace fossils are abundant at many localities in ocean-floor turbidites and mudstones that usually lack all other evidence of life. Twelve ichnogenera are present, and they are mainly meandering locomotion and feeding trails and burrow networks: Dictyodora, Caridolites, Helminthoida, Neonereites, Nereites, Protovirgularia, Gordia, Megagrapton, Paleodictyon, Chondrites, Plano-lites and Skolithos. The trace fossils occur in at least five distinct assemblages and the composition of these was probably controlled by the frequency and nature of the turbidity currents, and possibly by the oxygen content of the mudstones. Where turbidity currents were weak, abundant Dictyodora, together with Caridolites, Neonereites, Nereites, Protovirgularia and Gordia occur in various combinations. Where currents were stronger, traces such as Gordia, Paleodictyon and Megagrapton may be exhumed and cast on turbidite soles, and the sand may contain Skolithos. The ‘deep-sea’ Nereites trace fossil facies is divisible into several assemblages, presumably environmentally controlled.

2. Seafloor spreading and magnetic anomalies

2015 ◽  
pp. 17-35
Author(s):  
Peter Molnar
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Magnetic Anomalies ◽  
Seafloor Spreading ◽  
Ocean Floor ◽  
Sea Level Changes ◽  
Ocean Ridges ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference

‘Seafloor spreading and magnetic anomalies’ begins with the Vine–Matthews Hypothesis, which proposed that strips of seafloor parallel to the mid-ocean ridges, where two plates diverge from one another, were magnetized in opposite directions because the Earth’s field had reversed itself many times. A test of the Vine–Matthews Hypothesis, which required determining the age of the seafloor, became a test of seafloor spreading. Dating the ocean floor using magnetic anomalies detected by magnetometers towed behind ships and core samples extracted during the Deep-Sea Drilling Project confirmed the hypothesis. With magnetic anomalies to date the seafloor and a curve relating seafloor depth and age, the difference between the Atlantic, with its ‘ridge’, and the Pacific and its ‘rise’ became comprehensible. With a theory for predicting the depths of oceans, it was also possible to understand the history of sea-level changes.

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