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29
Oct
2018

World’s largest deep-sea octopus nursery discovered

Source: National Geographic
Author: Jason Bittel

Off the coast of Monterey, California, and some two miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, scientists piloting a remotely-operated submersible saw something no one has ever seen before.

Octopuses. Hundreds of them. Huddled on a rocky outcrop at the base of an underwater mountain.

“We went down the eastern flank of this small hill, and that’s when—boom—we just started seeing pockets of dozens here, dozens there, dozens everywhere,” says Chad King, chief scientist on the Exploration VesselNautilus.

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29
Oct
2018

These parts of the South African ocean – home to ancient coral and sea slugs that can fight cancer – will now be protected

Source: Business Insider South Africa
Author: Jay Caboz

South Africa has launched 20 new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), that together cover an area two and a half times the size of the Kruger National Park, some 50,000 square kilometres.

After it was signed off last week by cabinet, 5% of South Africa’s waters are now protected areas, compared to 0.4% previously. This means that fishing won’t be allowed in these areas.

Continue reading These parts of the South African ocean – home to ancient coral and sea slugs that can fight cancer – will now be protected

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24
Oct
2018

Novel ecosystems in the deep sea

Source: Ecologist
Author: Oliver Tickell

Innovative research is uncovering previously unknown species in deep seas vulnerable to over-fishing, pollution and habitat destruction.

Oceans researcher and campaigner Alex Rogers first experienced the full visual impact of ocean plastic pollution in 2015: “I was diving in Honduras in 2015 at Utila in the Bay Islands and there were all these beautiful coral reefs, but as we came around the island we were faced with a raft of rubbish stretching out as far as you could see: plastic bottles, expanded polystyrene, fibreglass, every kind of human waste you could imagine … I have never witnessed such a huge quantity of debris. It was horrific.”

Not that it was his first brush with ocean plastic. That had come three years earlier, when he and his team were exploring seamounts in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and Antarctica.

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22
Oct
2018

This headless chicken is the deep-sea ‘monster’ of our dreams

Source: Popular Science
Author: Sara Chodosh

If you want deep sea footage to go viral, you have to give whatever creature you find a funny name. Blobfish, for example, are always popular—and now so is the ‘headless chicken monster,’ which is really a swimming sea cucumber (but sounds more interesting if you call it a headless chicken monster).

Continue reading This headless chicken is the deep-sea ‘monster’ of our dreams

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18
Oct
2018

Volcanic Underwater World Discovered Off Coast of Tasmania

Source: News18

Scientists claim to have discovered a new underwater world off the Tasmanian coast made up of volcanic mountain peaks that tower about 3km from the seafloor.

During a 25-day research expedition, a team of researchers from the Australia National University detected the chain of volcanic seamounts 400km east of Tasmania using detailed seafloor mapping technology.

A seamount is a mountain that rises from the ocean floor but remains below the water surface.

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16
Oct
2018

What Happens If We Don’t Protect the High Seas?

Source: Nature Conservancy
Author: Maria Damanaki

There’s a proverb I’m fond of: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” I thought of this proverb as I followed the recent UN negotiations around a treaty to establish international governance for the high seas.

The high seas—the part of the ocean that lies outside of any national territory—cover almost 50 percent of the planet, but as of now they are subject to few regulations of any kind. The proposed UN treaty aims to establish guidelines “for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction.” With three more negotiation sessions to come, the goal is to ratify by the spring of 2020.

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4
Oct
2018

Arcadia Supports ‘Out of Sight Out of Mind’ Deep Ocean

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 1 October 2018

The deep sea is a hidden and neglected area of ocean conservation. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’, work to protect the area is poorly funded despite being subject to multiple pressures from climate change, pollution, destructive fishing and the new threat of deep seabed mining.

A new grant from Arcadia[1] – a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin – is, however, helping to change that.  The grant will enable the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC) to continue working to bring much needed attention and protection to the deep over the coming five years.

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3
Oct
2018

Shopping Bags in the Abyss: Addressing the Deep-Sea Plastic Crisis

Source: Nippon.com
Author: Chiba Sanae

The impact of human activity, namely our heavy reliance on single-use plastic products, has reached even the deepest depths of the ocean. Recently, I helped publish “Human Footprint in the Abyss,” the first-ever paper documenting the extent of plastic pollution in marine environments at depths greater than 6,000 meters. The project involved researchers from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and the UN World Conservation Monitoring Centre, and was based in part on findings from JAMSTEC’s Deep-Sea Debris Database. Launched in 2017, the database compiles images and videos taken from 1982 through 2015, during 5,010 dives to depths of more than 100 meters, by deep-sea submersibles and remotely operated vehicles.

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