Deep-sea mining hotspot teems with mystery animals

• By Helen Briggs
• Atmosphere correspondent

25 Might 2023

Image supply, All-natural History Museum London

Image caption,

From anemones to worms: A quantity of weird creatures have been retrieved from the Clarion Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean.

A vast stretch of ocean floor earmarked for deep sea mining is property to thousands of oddball sea creatures, most of them unknown to science.

They incorporate weird worms, brightly coloured sea cucumbers and corals.

Scientists have place collectively the initially complete stocktake of species to aid weigh up the dangers to biodiversity.

They say a lot more than five,000 diverse animals have been discovered in the Clarion Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean.

The region is a prime contender for the mining of valuable metals from the sea bed, which could commence as early as this year.

Providers want to exploit precious deep-sea metals in international waters, but have but to get started extraction.

Image supply, Smartex Project/NERC

Image caption,

This ping pong sponge is 1 of lots of strange specimens discovered in the region

The location is “a wonderfully weird atmosphere” with a plethora of creatures – “every little thing from strange [sea] cucumbers with elaborate sails on their back to wonderful glass sponges,” stated Muriel Rabone of the All-natural History Museum in London.

“We have to have to know what the biodiversity is and what we could shed from any mining impacts,” she added.

The researchers sifted by way of hundreds of scientific papers and thousands of records in databases to compile an inventory of life-types in the zone.

Of the thousands of “otherworldly”, “wonderful” and “ethereal” animals recorded, only 400 are identified to science.

• Tiny shrimp-like crustaceans

• Red and orange sea cucumbers identified as “gummy squirrels and bears”

• Urchins, brittle stars and sea lilies

Image supply, Smartex Project/NERC

Image caption,

A sea star adheres to a metallic nodule

The animals have evolved in isolation more than the course of millions of years in the cold, dark situations of the ocean floor.

The vast majority (90%) are new to science and have but to be provided a formal scientific name and ascribed to their location in the tree of life.

Dr Adrian Glover, also of the All-natural History Museum, stated we are on the eve of some of the biggest deep-sea mining operations potentially getting authorized.

We should guarantee any such activity is performed in a way that “limits its influence upon the organic planet”, he stated.

Image supply, Smartex Project/NERC

Image caption,

An animal identified as a ‘gummy squirrel’

Industrial deep-sea mining to harvest rocks containing precious metals has been proposed – and rigorously opposed – for decades.

Some think the minerals discovered in the seafloor are a promising supply of metals such as cobalt and nickel necessary for technologies such as mobile phones, wind turbines and EV batteries.

But opponents have argued that we do not know sufficient about ocean ecosystems to assure that mining will not lead to irreparable harm.

The study is published in the journal, Existing Biology.

Information on life beneath the ocean waves has been gathered by way of scores of scientific expeditions exactly where gear is lowered to the ocean floor to gather specimens and photos.

Comply with Helen on Twitter @hbriggs