Source: The Irish Times
Author: Michael Viney
Lophelia pertusa has nothing to with Hamlet’s damsel in the river and is not, for that matter, even Latin. I was once dropped from a “bright” stream in school for my apparent lack of effort with that language, a lacuna (there you are) now sometimes regretted.
Continue reading Protecting cold water corals that support an array of wildlife off our coasts
Source: National Geographic
Author: Liz Langley
If you were a red coral, you’d have enough time to fulfill several bucket lists before you died. Though it’s hard to figure out what you’d put on them.
Continue reading Why This Animal Can Live for Over 500 Years
Source: Mongabay
Author: Basten Gokkon
Scientists have described a new zone in the Caribbean’s deep ocean, shining a light on a little-known world that’s home to numerous previously unidentified reef-fish species.
Continue reading Under the sea: Life is the bubbles in newly described deep-reef zone
Source: The Irish Times
Author: Lorna Siggins
Ireland’s deep-water coral reefs may be changing far more rapidly than previously thought, according to new research by University College Cork(UCC) scientists.
Continue reading Deep-water coral off Irish west coast changing at ‘alarming’ rate
Source: The Irish Times
Author: Michael Viney
About 235km west of my workroom window, give or take a few Atlantic swells and bobbing plastic bottles, the continental shelf off Mayo slopes into the cavernous Rockall Trough.
Continue reading Hubs of deep-water life in need of greater protection
Source: Marine Conservation Institute
Author: Sam Georgian
Seamounts are underwater mountains rising thousands of feet from the bottom of the ocean. Due to their size and shape, seamounts exert a strong influence on local currents that results in nutrient enrichment and increased food supply. As a result, these massive features are often highly productive ‘oases’ in the deep sea, supporting a large diversity of species including functionally important deep-sea corals (Stocks and Hart 2007). Deep-sea corals provide essential habitat structures for a large number of associated organisms, including many commercially important fish. These communities are currently at risk from a number of threats including climate change, oil and gas extraction, and benthic fisheries.
Continue reading Needle in a haystack: identifying vulnerable marine ecosystems in the deep sea
Source: The New York Times
Author: Christopher Pal
HONOLULU — Terry Kerby has been piloting deep-sea submarines for four decades, but nothing prepared him for the devastation he observed recently on several underwater mountains called seamounts in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Continue reading Loss of Federal Protections May Imperil Pacific Reefs, Scientists Warn
Source: International Business Times
Author: ,
The mysterious habitats of the deep are being destroyed before we know anything about them.
Given its vastness and apparent remoteness from our everyday lives, the deep sea has been widely considered protected from the impacts of the human era, known as the Anthropocene. This, unfortunately, is not true.
Source: the Guardian
Author: Damian Carrington
A new gold rush is targeting rich ores on the ocean floor containing valuable metals needed for smartphones and green technologies, but also hosting exotic ecosystems.
Continue reading Is deep sea mining vital for a greener future – even if it destroys ecosystems?
The deep ocean and the creatures that live there are facing a desperate future due to food shortages and changing temperatures, according to research exploring the impact of climate change and human activity on the world’s seas.
Continue reading Deep sea life faces dark future due to warming and food shortage
