Marine life takes decades to recover from mineral extraction at the sea floor Oceans

Marine life can lead to contracts to recover from the effect of rare mineral extraction in the sea. This Thursday was published in the scientific journal nature It reveals that the deep water mining test site, which was in 1979 in the North Pacific, still has lower levels Biological diversity Another neighboring place that has not been disturbed, after 44 years.

The study was conducted for the year 2023 and 2024, at the test site in Clarion KalbeberbonIt is located in the middle of the road largely between Mexico and Hawaii, in the Pacific Ocean, which is a vast and flat area known as the regular Abiasal, five thousand meters below the surface, where the main interests of exploring the metal are concentrated in the sea.

Marine biologist Mark Hartl, co -author of the investigationIt explains in a statement that the minerals are in round deposits at the bottom of seafood and the size of potatoes. Known as nodules, these deposits It contains rare minerals such as cobalt and nickel, and materials that are used to manufacture electric car batteries, among other applications.

one Modern discoveryAnd it is still born controversy in the scientific community, which lacks confirmation, indicates that these nodules produce oxygen. In this way, they can play a major role for the ecosystems of marine background. But human activity, which is the extraction of mining, which will be resorted to large machines that will disturb the full environment of marine backgrounds, puts us at risk.

It was not yet known how the exploitation of raw materials in the sea would affect living organisms. It is not even known what are the effects of exposure to the animal for the feathers of the deposit that contains metal, which are moved during the mining extraction process.

Portugal pioneers in protection

But there are interested companies and countries Apply with raw extraction Although others are defending a break for a few decades, so that we can better understand the effects that this type of mining activity can have. This is the case PortugalWhere Parliament agreed to March legislation, which imposes a Endowment About this practice in Portuguese waters by 2050, it was already released by president. Portugal was the first country To bear such legislation at the national level.

What will happen in International Water, However, it is discussed, within the scope of the United Nations Conference on the LawWhich extends to more than six million square kilometers. More than 21 billion tons of metal nodules are estimated to be at the bottom of the sea.

These fields of nodules are certainly supporting “very specialized animal and microbes”, the researchers say. For example, there are living organisms with limestone shells, sea cucumber, fish and species that depend on nodules as the only solid surface in which they settled.

In this study, the researchers studied an area at the bottom of the ocean where a 14 -year experimental mining machine was placed in March 1979 in the first mining experience. The device extracted an unknown amount of four -day nodules using a rotating Room mechanical RAW.

Four decades of shock

The scientists concluded that after more than four decades of this mining article, “the biological effects on many groups of living organism are continuing, although some small species, with the ability to move, began to recover.

The physical signs of the test are also clear: the signs of the machine, and the paths separated by eight meters, made from its passage at the bottom of the sea, remain evident, as if it were just done. The areas stripped of the nodules are still empty.

“The general environmental theory states that, after turmoil, i.e. Ecosystem It will go through a series of successive stages of re -use and growth. However, even this study, we had no idea about the time scales of this critical process in the depth of Minas Gerais, or the way different parts of society respond in different ways, “says a co -author of the research Adrian Gilofer, in a press release.

The investigation was conducted by scientists at the National Center for Oceanic Sciences in Southampton, in light of a consortium that includes many British institutions that make up part of The sea floor mining and the flexibility of the experimental effect (Smartex), a project funded by the UK Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) to determine the effect of mining on the sea floor in the middle of the Pacific.

The study was published a few days after the SOS Ocean event, which is held at the end of this week in Paris, to discuss the state of the oceans and the necessary measures to protect it, in the decrease in the number of the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3), which occurs in June in April. helpless