The Deep Sea May Soon Be Up for Grabs

A diamond-mining ship off Namibia’s coast last year suctioning sediment from the seabed.Credit Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
A diamond-mining ship off Namibia’s coast last year suctioning sediment from the seabed.Credit Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

The rush to exploit the riches of the deep ocean and seafloor is beginning. As pollution, overfishing and climate change sap the productivity of surface waters, many countries and companies are scouting new territory deeper down. This presents a threat the deep ocean has never faced.

Vast, dark and largely unexplored, these overlooked parts of the oceans are rich in marine life, gems, metals, minerals and oil. Stretching from 650 to 3,200 feet below the surface, the mesopelagic — known as the twilight zone because there is so little sunlight — is the first stop for deep ocean exploitation.

With an estimated 10 billion metric tons of marine life, including fish, shrimp and squid, these depths offer a seemingly endless bounty. That’s why fishing nations are looking closely at this region of the sea. As of spring 2017, for instance, Norway had issued 46 new licenses for vessels to fish in the mesopelagic in the previous nine months, according to The Economist. Harvesting just 1 percent of this zone would double our overall fisheries catch, with consequences we have yet to grasp.

The next stop is the seafloor, which represents 71 percent of Earth’s surface. Only about 15 percent of it has been mapped. We know more about the surface of Mars.

While we’ve been mining shallow coastal waters for sand, gold, tin and diamonds for decades, commercial seafloor mining is a nascent industry. De Beers, the world’s largest diamond producer, recently spent $157 million on a state-of-the-art vessel that will search 2,300 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean seafloor just off the coast of Namibia for gems and vacuum up what it finds. The seafloor also contains precious metals, rare earth minerals and oil — resources that have tremendous commercial value and are now, thanks to advances in marine technology, within our reach.

The International Seabed Authority, which regulates deep-sea mining, has allowed companies from dozens of countries to explore for minerals in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a region of the Pacific Ocean extending from the west coast of Mexico to Hawaii that contains deposits of nickel, manganese, copper, zinc, cobalt and other minerals. Mining could begin there in the next few years.

Given our lousy track record for protecting the oceans, the stakes are incredibly high. Marine scientists and engineers are racing to explore and map the oceans, including the fragile communities living both in the water and on the seafloor, before it is exploited. To prevent a catastrophic free-for-all, we need to make decisions about extracting ocean resources that are informed by science. Careful stewardship of the oceans based on data, and not just the potential for short-term profit, should drive ocean policy for fishing and mining.

Nineteenth-century oceanographers believed that the deep ocean was devoid of life. They couldn’t imagine how this cold, dark, high-pressure environment, with barely enough sunlight for animals to see and not enough for plants to grow, could be productive. But as new technology became available, starting with sonar and manned submersibles, then remotely operated and autonomous underwater vehicles and today’s fleets of drifting drones, it became increasingly clear that the deep ocean is teeming with extraordinary life.

The twilight zone may not look like the tropical coral reef of your fantasy vacation, but it is equally magnificent, home to creatures both bizarre and beautiful. Scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, where we work, have discovered hundreds of new species, like Chondrocladia lyra, also known as the harp sponge, a species of carnivorous deep-sea sponge, which lives at depths of two miles. Biomedical researchers are studying deep-sea sponges and corals to see whether they hold lifesaving properties for diseases like cancer.

Unfortunately, the same technology that has enabled such quantum leaps in our understanding of the deep ocean now allows us to fish and mine with brutal efficiency.

The race is on. Our next moonshot is not to Mars or deep space. It is aimed at the ocean depths. The biggest challenge to deep-sea exploration is no longer technology. It’s how we use that technology.

To save our largest global commons, scientists and engineers must deploy observational and exploratory technology at much greater scale than we have in the past — and much more quickly. We need a global initiative to accelerate our understanding of the deep sea and how it is faring. A cooperative, multicountry monitoring network to track and report threats like overfishing, pollution and warming could provide critical guidance for climate policy and sustainable ocean management.

Already, new technology is demonstrating its value in solving tough challenges. For example, a National Science Foundation-funded pilot initiative in the Southern Ocean, the enormous body of water encircling Antarctica, has deployed more than 100 drones with sensors that measure important ocean health indicators, including oxygen, nitrate and pH. For the first time, scientists have been able to monitor changes in the uptake of carbon dioxide and make this data publicly available in real time. If this effort could be scaled up to 1,000 drones spaced across the entire ocean, it would allow the tracking of regional carbon emissions to help ensure that countries meet their commitments under the Paris climate accord.

Building a global ocean health observing system will take a sustained international commitment. There are hopeful signs that world leaders are finally giving the oceans the attention they deserve. Among the topics the leaders of the Group of 7 nations will discuss at their conference on Friday and Saturday in Quebec will be keeping oceans healthy and coastal communities resilient. Their meeting on Friday coincides with World Oceans Day.

Also hopeful is the growing number of philanthropic donors choosing to focus on ocean science and conservation. In 2015, philanthropic support for marine conservation was $399 million — roughly double what it was in 2010. This increase was welcome. But to put it in perspective, Harvard University received a gift of $400 million in 2015 from one alumnus. Even more critical, funding for ocean science by the federal government, which has been flat for years, must rise.

The oceans are the largest home for life on our planet and the blue heart of earth’s climate system. We must use them wisely. Otherwise, we risk using them up.

Julie Packard is the executive director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Chris Scholin is the president and chief executive of its Research Institute.

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