Sigmoid Social

DoomsdaysCWAs <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Norway" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Norway</a> Considers <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/DeepSeaMining" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#DeepSeaMining</a>, a Rich History of Ocean Conservation Decisions May Inform How the Country ActsIn the past, scientists, industry and government have worked together in surprising, tense and fruitful waysby Christian Elliott, April 21, 2025"At the <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Arctic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Arctic</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/MidOceanRidge" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#MidOceanRidge</a> off the Norwegian coast, molten rock rises from deep within the Earth between spreading tectonic plates. Black smoker vents sustain unique ecosystems in the dark. Endemic species of long, segmented bristle worms and tiny crustaceans graze on bacteria mats and flit among fields of chemosynthetic tube worms, growing thick as grass. Dense banks of sponges cling to the summits and slopes of underwater mountains. And among all this life, minerals build up slowly over millennia in the form of <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/sulfide" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#sulfide</a> deposits and <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/manganese" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#manganese</a> crusts."Those minerals are the kind needed to fuel the global green energy transition—<a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/copper" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#copper</a>, <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/zinc" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#zinc</a> and <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/cobalt" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#cobalt</a>. In January 2024, Norway surprised the world with the announcement it planned to open its waters for exploratory deep-sea mining, the first nation to do so. If all went to plan, companies would be issued licenses to begin identifying mineral deposits as soon as <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Spring2025" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Spring2025</a>. To some scientists who’d spent decades mapping and studying the geology and ecology of the Norwegian seabed and Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge, the decision seemed premature—they still lacked critical data on the area targeted for mining. The government’s own Institute of Marine Research (IMR) accused it of extrapolating from a small area where data has already been collected to the much larger zone now targeted“ 'Our advice has been we don’t have enough knowledge,' says Rebecca Ross, an <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/ecologist" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ecologist</a> at IMR who works on Norway’s <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Mareano" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Mareano</a> deep-sea mapping initiative. She says the decision was based solely on the <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/geology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#geology</a> of the area. Taking high-resolution scans of the seabed and sampling its geology is the first step when research ships enter a new area, but critical biological and ecological research is more difficult and tends to come later—which is the case on the ridge area targeted for mining. Ross says it’s certain that area contains vulnerable marine ecosystems that would be affected by the light and noise pollution and sediment plumes generated by mining. The IMR estimates closing the knowledge gap on the target area could take ten years."The same conflict, with a partial scientific understanding misinterpreted and used to justify resource extraction, is playing out in the <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Pacific" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Pacific</a>, where mining pilot projects are already underway in international waters. Years before, scientists funded by industry scouted the <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/seabed" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#seabed</a> there, discovering both valuable minerals and new forms of life."Read more: <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/as-norway-considers-deep-sea-mining-a-rich-history-of-ocean-conservation-decisions-may-inform-how-the-country-acts-180986412/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/as-norway-considers-deep-sea-mining-a-rich-history-of-ocean-conservation-decisions-may-inform-how-the-country-acts-180986412/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us</a><a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/LeaveItInTheOcean" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#LeaveItInTheOcean</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/DeepSeaMining" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#DeepSeaMining</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/NoDeepSeaMining" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#NoDeepSeaMining</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/RecycleCopper" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#RecycleCopper</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/LifeOnEarth" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#LifeOnEarth</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Ecocide" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Ecocide</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/PlanetDestroyers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PlanetDestroyers</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/HumanGreed" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HumanGreed</a>

DoomsdaysCW<a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Oxygen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Oxygen</a> produced in the <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/DeepSea" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#DeepSea</a> raises questions about extraterrestrial life"Over 12,000 feet below the surface of the sea, in a region of the Pacific Ocean known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (<a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/CCZ" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#CCZ</a>), million-year-old rocks cover the seafloor. These rocks may seem lifeless, but nestled between the nooks and crannies on their surfaces, tiny sea creatures and microbes make their home, many uniquely adapted to life in the dark."These deep-sea rocks, called polymetallic <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/nodules" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#nodules</a>, don't only host a surprising number of sea critters. A team of scientists that includes Boston University experts has discovered they also produce oxygen on the seafloor."The discovery is a surprise considering oxygen is typically created by plants and organisms with help from the sun -- not by rocks on the ocean floor. About half of all the oxygen we breathe is made near the surface of the ocean by phytoplankton that photosynthesize just like land-dwelling plants. Since the sun is needed to carry out photosynthesis, finding oxygen production at the bottom of the sea, where there is no light, flips conventional wisdom on its head. It was so unexpected that scientists involved in the study first thought it was a mistake."This was really weird, because no one had ever seen it before," says Jeffrey Marlow, a BU College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of biology and coauthor on the study, which was published in Nature Geoscience.As an expert in microbes that live in the most extreme habitats on Earth -- like hardened lava and deep-sea hydrothermal vents -- Marlow initially suspected that microbial activity could be responsible for making oxygen. The research team used deep-sea chambers that land on the seafloor and enclose the seawater, sediment, polymetallic nodules, and living organisms. They then measured how oxygen levels changed in the chambers over 48 hours. If there are plentiful organisms breathing oxygen, then the levels would normally decline, depending on how much animal activity is present in the chamber. But in this case, oxygen was increasing." 'We did a lot of troubleshooting and found that the oxygen levels increased many more times following that initial measurement,' Marlow says. 'So we're now convinced it's a real signal.'"He and his colleagues were aboard a research vessel tasked with learning more about the ecology of the CCZ, which spans 1.7 million square miles between <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Hawaii" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Hawaii</a> and <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Mexico" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Mexico</a>, for an environmental survey sponsored by The Metals Company, a deep-sea mining firm interested in extracting the rocks en masse for metals. After running experiments on board the vessel, Marlow and the team, led by Andrew Sweetman at the Scottish Association for Marine Science, concluded the phenomenon isn't primarily caused by microbial activity, despite the abundance of many different types of microbes both on and inside the rocks."<a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/PolymetallicNodules" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PolymetallicNodules</a> are made of rare metals, including <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/copper" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#copper</a>, nickel, cobalt, iron, and manganese, which is why companies are interested in mining them. It turns out, according to the study, that those densely packed metals are likely triggering "seawater electrolysis." This means that metal ions in the rock layers are distributed unevenly, creating a separation of electrical charges -- just like what happens inside of a battery. This phenomenon creates enough energy to split water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen. They named this "dark oxygen," since it's oxygen made with no sunlight. What remains unclear is the exact mechanism of how this happens, if oxygen levels vary across the CCZ, and if the oxygen plays a significant role in sustaining the local ecosystem."<a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240826182909.htm" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240826182909.htm</a><a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/LeaveItInTheOcean" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#LeaveItInTheOcean</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/DeepSeaMining" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#DeepSeaMining</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/NoDeepSeaMining" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#NoDeepSeaMining</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/RecycleCopper" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#RecycleCopper</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/LifeOnEarth" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#LifeOnEarth</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Ecocide" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Ecocide</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/PlanetDestroyers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PlanetDestroyers</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/HumanGreed" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HumanGreed</a>

DoomsdaysCWSo, the discovery of <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/DarkOxygen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#DarkOxygen</a> deep under the ocean reminds me of how <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/NativeAmericans" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#NativeAmericans</a> and other <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/IndigenousPeoples" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#IndigenousPeoples</a> have warned us that messing with certain places could affect life on <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/MotherEarth" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#MotherEarth</a> -- that some of them keep harmful forces (radiation) in check, or are essential in the creation of oxygen. Life on Earth exists only because certain elements have come together in a certain way. Why mess with what works?!!! <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Extinction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Extinction</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/DefendTheSacred" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#DefendTheSacred</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/DefendMotherEarth" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#DefendMotherEarth</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/NoDeepSeaMining" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#NoDeepSeaMining</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/LeaveItInTheGround" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#LeaveItInTheGround</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/LeaveItInTheOcean" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#LeaveItInTheOcean</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/WaterIsLife" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#WaterIsLife</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/NoUraniumMining" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#NoUraniumMining</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/NoLithiumMining" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#NoLithiumMining</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Recycle" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Recycle</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/ElectronicsRecycling" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ElectronicsRecycling</a>

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