Deep-sea mining hotspot teems with mystery animals

• By Helen Briggs
• Atmosphere correspondent

25 Might 2023

Image supply, Organic 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 household 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 very first complete stocktake of species to enable weigh up the dangers to biodiversity.

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

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

Firms want to exploit worthwhile deep-sea metals in international waters, but have however to start off extraction.

Image supply, Smartex Project/NERC

Image caption,

This ping pong sponge is a single of numerous strange specimens discovered in the location

The location is “a wonderfully weird atmosphere” with a plethora of creatures – “anything from strange [sea] cucumbers with elaborate sails on their back to attractive glass sponges,” stated Muriel Rabone of the Organic History Museum in London.

“We have to have to know what the biodiversity is and what we may perhaps drop 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”, “attractive” and “ethereal” animals recorded, only 400 are recognized to science.

• Tiny shrimp-like crustaceans

• Red and orange sea cucumbers recognized 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 however to be offered a formal scientific name and ascribed to their location in the tree of life.

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

We ought to assure any such activity is completed in a way that “limits its effect upon the organic globe”, he stated.

Image supply, Smartex Project/NERC

Image caption,

An animal recognized as a ‘gummy squirrel’

Industrial deep-sea mining to harvest rocks containing worthwhile 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 never know sufficient about ocean ecosystems to assure that mining will not result in irreparable harm.

The investigation 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 pictures.

Comply with Helen on Twitter @hbriggs