Deep Sea Mining:study confirms the impact on marine life

The disturbance associated with the extraction of mineral resources on the sea floor has all the potential to represent a major environmental stressor for deep ocean organisms.This is what a new one concluded study focused on the effects of deep mining, a practice increasingly implemented with the aim of finding the minerals necessary for the energy transition, on an aquatic organism, the helmet jellyfish (Periphylla periphylla).Although mining operations will target seabed minerals – the authors explained – they will also pump out fine sediments, generating “clouds” of suspended material.The collected sediments will then have to be partially discharged into the water column, which will generate "sediment plumes" extending tens or hundreds of kilometers.Deep-sea mining would therefore not only affect animal communities on the seabed, but even those in the water column above.And given that there is generally little sediment in this marine layer – they then specified – it is expected that the animals living in it will be highly sensitive to the effect of sediment induced by mining activity.

The research in question was conducted as part of the project Integrated Assessment of Atlantic Marine Ecosystems in Space and Time (iAtlantic) aimed at assessing the health of deep-sea ecosystems and the Atlantic Ocean.The work concerns the entire Atlantic basin and was designed with the aim of providing the knowledge necessary for management responsible and sustainable ocean resources.It is therefore no coincidence that one of the studies focused on understanding the impact of deep-sea mining activities.In recent years, this emerging industrial activity has attracted international attention since it is precisely between 400 and 5000 meters deep, in the rock substrates of underwater mountains and in areas marked by volcanic activity, that rare earths can be found and other elements today considered strategic for the energy transition.The seabed, being more than 12 miles away from the coasts of any nation, is however a common good and - as established by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea - heritage of humanity to be protected. For this reason, to date, there has still been no official green light.Thus, the fate of this "free area" is decided by the International Seabed Authority, which, since its establishment, has however already granted 31 licenses for pilot extractive explorations to over 20 countries.

Last July the international body he decided, only temporarily, not to authorize the practice – known in English as deep sea mining – but it's probably just a matter of time.For now, in fact, the only impediment has been the failure to reach an agreement to regulate this activity.However, many believe that seabed mining should be completely prevented and unregulated.For example, about a month ago, about a hundred environmental groups called for a moratorium to nip this potentially devastating practice in the bud.Environmentalists, in particular, fear that the direction taken is that of exploiting the seabed in the near future with the justification that this will contribute to making the world more sustainable by helping the energy transition.All this, then, despite the consequences - still little explored - that deep-sea mining will have on the marine ecosystem.Besides, how can you blame him.Another study published in October on Current Biology – the first to monitor the real impact of deep sea mining and not based on estimates – for example, he demonstrated how they had just two hours of extraction off the coast of Japan halved the fish population, even after more than a year, both on the work site and in the areas adjacent to it.Among other things – how he stated the director of the EU Council of National Academies of Sciences – «the narrative that deep-sea mining is essential to achieving our climate goals would be completely misleading:rather, the damage generated by such activity in the seabed could be as serious for the balance of the planet, and therefore for the human societies it hosts, as they are irreversible".

[by Simone Valeri]