{"id":69339,"date":"2025-03-27T07:23:53","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T18:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/?p=69339"},"modified":"2025-07-28T20:59:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T08:59:55","slug":"deep-sea-mining-would-also-threaten-sea-life-by-dumping-debris-into-the-thriving-midwater-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/story\/deep-sea-mining-would-also-threaten-sea-life-by-dumping-debris-into-the-thriving-midwater-zone\/","title":{"rendered":"Deep-sea mining would also threaten sea life by dumping debris into the thriving midwater\u00a0zone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Picture an ocean world so deep and dark it feels like another planet \u2013 where creatures glow and life survives under crushing pressure.<\/p>\n\n

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A cnidarian is attached to a dead sponge stalk on a manganese nodule in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Diva Amon and Craig Smith, University of Hawaii at M\u0101noa<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

This is the midwater zone<\/a>, a hidden ecosystem that begins 650 feet (200 meters) below the ocean surface and sustains life across our planet. It includes the twilight zone and the midnight zone, where strange and delicate animals thrive in the near absence of sunlight. Whales and commercially valuable fish such as tuna rely on animals in this zone for food. But this unique ecosystem faces an unprecedented threat.<\/p>\n\n

As the demand for electric car batteries and smartphones grows, mining companies are turning their attention to the deep sea<\/a>, where precious metals such as nickel and cobalt can be found in potato-size nodules sitting on the ocean floor.<\/p>\n\n

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Images of marine life spotted in the midwater zone. Bucklin, et al., Marine Biology, 2021. Photos by R.R. Hopcroft and C. Clarke (University of Alaska Fairbanks) and L.P. Madin (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Deep-sea mining research and experiments over the past 40 years have shown how the removal of nodules can put seafloor creatures at risk by disrupting their habitats<\/a>. However, the process can also pose a danger to what lives above it, in the midwater ecosystem. If future deep-sea mining operations release sediment plumes<\/a> into the water column, as proposed, the debris could interfere with animals\u2019<\/a> feeding, disrupt food webs and alter animals\u2019 behaviors.<\/p>\n\n

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