There are bright, gummy creatures that look like a partially peeled banana. Glassy, translucent sponges that cling to the seabed like chandeliers flipped upside down. Phantasmic octopuses named, appropriately, after Casper the Friendly Ghost.
And that’s just what’s been discovered so far in the ocean’s biggest hot spot for future deep-sea mining.
To manufacture electric vehicles, batteries and other key pieces of a low-carbon economy, we need a lot of metal. Countries and companies are increasingly looking to mine that copper, cobalt and other critical minerals from the seafloor.
A new analysis of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a vast mineral-rich area in the Pacific Ocean, estimates there are some 5,000 sea animals completely new to science there. The research published Thursday in the journal Current Biology is the latest sign that underwater extraction may come at a cost to a diverse array of life we are only beginning to understand.
Scientists detected 5,000 sea creatures nobody knew existed. It’s a warning.
And that’s just what’s been discovered so far in the ocean’s biggest hot spot for future deep-sea mining.
To manufacture electric vehicles, batteries and other key pieces of a low-carbon economy, we need a lot of metal. Countries and companies are increasingly looking to mine that copper, cobalt and other critical minerals from the seafloor.
A new analysis of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a vast mineral-rich area in the Pacific Ocean, estimates there are some 5,000 sea animals completely new to science there. The research published Thursday in the journal Current Biology is the latest sign that underwater extraction may come at a cost to a diverse array of life we are only beginning to understand.
Scientists detected 5,000 sea creatures nobody knew existed. It’s a warning.
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