michael6-Nov-2025
First study of its kind finds #DeepSeaMining waste threatens life and #foodwebs in the ocean’s dim “twilight zone”
Particle plumes ejected by #mining operations into deep #Pacific waters threaten food source of more than half of the #zooplankton types -- leading to bottom-up disruption of delicately balanced food system
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1104607
#science #ecology #environment
First study of its kind finds #DeepSeaMining waste threatens life and #foodwebs in the ocean’s dim “twilight zone”
Particle plumes ejected by #mining operations into deep #Pacific waters threaten food source of more than half of the #zooplankton types -- leading to bottom-up disruption of delicately balanced food system
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1104607
#science #ecology #environment
First study of its kind finds deep-sea mining waste threatens life and foodwebs in the ocean’s dim “twilight zone”
A new study led by researchers at the University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa published today in Nature Communications is the first of its kind to show that waste discharged from deep-sea mining operations in the Pacific’s biodiverse Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) could disrupt marine life in the midwater “twilight zone” — a vital region 200-1,500 meters below sea level that supports vast communities of zooplankton, tiny animals that serve as the ocean’s basic food building blocks. Specifically, it finds that 53% of all zooplankton and 60% of micronekton, which feed on zooplankton, would be impacted by the discharge, which could ultimately impact predators higher up on the food web.