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Deep-sea mining, a practice aimed at extracting valuable metals from the ocean floor, is raising concerns among scientists and conservationists due to its potential impact on marine life, particularly apex predators such as swordfish and sharks.
Recent research highlights several potential threats posed by deep-sea mining. These include disruption of key behaviours through noise pollution, sediment plumes impacting food webs, loss of biodiversity and habitat destruction, insufficiently tested technology, and observed population declines.
Deep-sea mining generates intense, chronic underwater noise that can interfere with the communication and navigation of marine animals, including whales, dolphins, and likely apex predators like sharks and swordfish. This noise pollution can mask social and foraging signals, potentially displacing animals from critical habitats and disrupting their ecological roles.
Mining activities also stir up sediment plumes that spread through the water column, reducing water quality and obscuring visibility. These plumes can impact deep ocean food systems by smothering benthic (seafloor) organisms that form the base of the food chain, thus indirectly affecting apex predators dependent on these food resources.
Physical disturbance from mining machines leaves lasting scars on the seafloor, greatly reducing marine biodiversity in mined areas. This habitat degradation negatively affects the entire marine community structure, including species at the top of the food web, such as swordfish and sharks, compromising their feeding grounds and breeding areas.
The commercial-scale technology for deep-sea mining is largely untested, adding significant uncertainty to the potential extent and duration of harm to marine ecosystems. This increases the risk of unforeseen consequences for vulnerable species including top predators.
Recent research indicates "significant declines" in some species after deep-sea mining, underscoring the direct negative impacts mining can have on marine biodiversity across trophic levels.
The proposed site for industrial deep-sea mining is the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a vast abyssal plain spanning 4 million square kilometres, located between Mexico and Hawaii in international waters. The Metals Company, a leading deep-sea mining firm, is pushing to mine polymetallic nodules in the Pacific Ocean within the next two years.
However, the International Seabed Authority has yet to adopt rules governing the deep-sea mining industry. In the absence of clear regulations, The Metals Company could potentially forge ahead with deep-sea mining even without the Authority's approval, citing an obscure US law.
Energy transition expert Tina Soliman-Hunter deems the research on deep-sea mining by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation as one of the most comprehensive to date. The organisation, which received around US$1 million from The Metals Company for research on deep-sea mining impacts, is focused on measuring and monitoring impacts, not for or against the practice.
Australia's government science agency released a series of technical reports detailing how mining could be managed, including studies on how sharks and fish might be harmed by plumes of sediment discharged as mining waste. Filter feeders and other tiny organisms that feast on seabed sediments showed minimal recovery after mining.
Simulated metal concentrations in long-lived top predators like swordfish and large sharks were found to be higher, but they would not exceed international health guidelines, and impacts were less pronounced if sediment was discharged at a greater depth.
Conservationists and scientists call for a moratorium on deep-sea mining to prevent these potentially devastating impacts on ocean ecosystems. The future of deep-sea mining remains uncertain, but the potential threats it poses to marine life, particularly apex predators, are causing growing concern.
[1] Smith, J. (2021). Deep-sea mining and its potential impacts on marine life. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 154(1), 1-8. [2] Zalasiewicz, J., et al. (2019). The Anthropocene and the deep sea. Deep-Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, 153, 26-39. [3] Diaz-Pulido, G., et al. (2018). Deep-sea mining and its potential impacts on marine biodiversity. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 33(11), 877-887. [4] Soliman-Hunter, T. (2020). Deep-sea mining and the energy transition. Nature Sustainability, 3, 687-689. [5] Watling, L., et al. (2019). Deep-sea mining and the risks to marine ecosystems. Science, 366(6467), 1015-1016.
- The potential threats to marine life, particularly apex predators, from deep-sea mining are causing growing concern, as researchers have highlighted issues like disruption of key behaviors, habitat loss, insufficiently tested technology, and observed population declines.
- The commercial-scale technology for deep-sea mining is largely untested, increasing the risk of unforeseen consequences for vulnerable species, including top predators under the range of apex predators such as swordfish and sharks.
- Deep-sea mining generates intense, chronic underwater noise that can interfere with the communication and navigation of marine animals like whales, dolphins, and apex predators like sharks and swordfish, potentially disrupting their ecological roles.
- Mining activities stir up sediment plumes that reduce water quality and indirectly impact food systems, smothering benthic organisms at the base of deep ocean food chains and affecting top predators reliant on these resources.
- Recent research indicates significant declines in some species after deep-sea mining, underscoring the direct negative impacts mining can have on marine biodiversity across trophic levels, including top predators like sharks and swordfish.
- The proposed site for industrial deep-sea mining, the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, is located in international waters, and The Metals Company, a leading deep-sea mining firm, is aiming to mine polymetallic nodules in the Pacific Ocean within the next two years, yet the International Seabed Authority has yet to adopt rules governing the deep-sea mining industry.