A new study led by researchers at the University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa published recently in Nature Communications is the first-of-its-kind to show that waste discharged from deep-sea mining operations in the Pacific’s biodiverse Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) could disrupt marine life in the midwater “twilight zone” — a vital region 200-1,500 meters below sea level that supports vast communities of zooplankton, tiny animals that serve as the ocean’s basic food building blocks. Specifically, it finds that 53% of all zooplankton and 60% of micronekton, which feed on zooplankton, would be…
Read MoreFirst Study of Its Kind Finds Deep-Sea Mining Waste Threatens Life and Foodwebs in the Ocean’s Dim “Twilight Zone”
