A new peer-reviewed study published in Nature Communications on Thursday warns that waste from deep-sea mining could disrupt life in the ocean’s “twilight zone”, a key midwater layer supporting much of the marine food web.
Researchers from the University of Hawaii‘s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) found that over half of zooplankton and 60% of micronekton could be affected by sediment plumes from mining trials in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ). These particles, far less nutritious than natural food sources, risk triggering a “junk food” effect up the food chain.
“When the waste released by mining activity enters the ocean, it creates water as murky as the mud-filled Mississippi River,” lead author Michael Dowd says. “It dilutes the nutritious natural food particles usually consumed by tiny, drifting zooplankton”.
Spanning 200 to 1,500 metres below the…
