deep sea

Civil society urges immediate action to protect fragile deep sea ecosystems

25 July, 2022

Press Release

Six years after the adoption of the EU deep-sea fishing Regulation that prohibited bottom trawling below 800 meters in EU waters, the EU has finally adopted an ‘Implementing Act’ to begin closing coldwater coral and other biologically diverse deep-sea vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) below 400 meters depth to bottom fishing. 

Civil society welcomes this long-awaited protection of VMEs. The adopted protective measures are, however, already under threat.

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Even the deepest, coldest parts of the ocean are getting warmer

20 October, 2020

Source: Science News
Author: Maria Temming

Things are heating up at the seafloor.

Thermometers moored at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean recorded an average temperature increase of about 0.02 degrees Celsius over the last decade, researchers report in the Sept. 28 Geophysical Research Letters. That warming may be a consequence of human-driven climate change, which has boosted ocean temperatures near the surface (SN: 9/25/19), but it’s unclear since so little is known about the deepest, darkest parts of the ocean.

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Whales get a second life as deep-sea buffets

15 October, 2020

Source: Science News for Students
Author: Stephen Ornes

Last October, a team of marine explorers sent Hercules — a remote-controlled vehicle — to the bottom of the ocean. Its mission: to visit an octopus neighborhood. It was off the coast of central California, near an undersea volcano. Late one night, after scanning a long stretch of empty seafloor, Hercules’ spotlight and camera revealed a parade of curious creatures. First was a slender bottom-feeder called an eelpout. It was half-buried in the sediment. Then came a sea pig — a squishy thing that looks like a living pink balloon, but with tentacles.

Continue reading Whales get a second life as deep-sea buffets