Latest news with #ChallengerDeep
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Contributor: Donald Trump's plan for pirate mining
On April 24, President Trump issued another questionable executive order, this one calling for deep-sea mining in both federal and international waters. The former is within his control; the latter would be a violation of international law. Although the U.S. is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea — the 1982 treaty ratified by 169 other nations that regulates maritime activities, including deep-sea mining, on and in the high seas — the U.S. has always abided by it. Until now. 'You know we're sometimes an outlier on things like the Law of the Sea treaty,' says Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), ranking member on the House Natural Resources Committee. 'And what [Trump's] doing with deep-sea mining is just making us even more of a lone ranger, if not a pariah.' Read more: The Oceans Court ruled that the seas are a hot mess. Why haven't you heard about it? Global mining consortiums have been eyeing mineral-rich nodules on the ocean floor since the 1970s. Sometimes as large as potatoes, the nodules form around a hard nucleus, such as a grain of sand or a shark's tooth, accumulating minerals out of seawater and sediment over millions of years in the deep benthic zone, the least-studied of the ocean's fragile ecosystems. Given the limits of 20th century technology, mining two to three miles below the ocean's surface proved commercially impractical, to the relief of environmentalists and oceanographers. But a bad idea that promises quick returns never gets old. Today, tech-driven mining corporations, such as the Metals Company of Canada, known as TMC, are leading the way back into the deep. The UN's International Seabed Authority, established under the Law of the Sea treaty, has granted TMC and other companies exploratory permits for deep-sea mining. Using massive mother ships, the companies deploy tank-tread "robotic excavators" (essentially, underwater bulldozers) or giant vacuum crawlers connected to pipes, pumps and miles of power cable. The Metals Company alone has recovered 4,500 tons of nodules. Now, TMC and the Trump administration are claiming that a novel interpretation of an obscure American law allows the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to issue commercial mining permits in waters the rest of the world considers outside American jurisdiction. Read more: The most important part of the ocean you've never heard of In 1960, U.S. Navy Capt. Don Walsh was one of the first two humans to reach the deepest part of the ocean — the so-called Challenger Deep — along with Jacques Piccard, who piloted their bathysphere. Two years before Walsh died in 2023, he explained why opening large swaths of international waters to deep-sea mining would be a mistake. 'It's kind of like clear-cutting the forest,' Walsh told me. 'It doesn't differentiate between the ore and the things that live on the seafloor. And these are organisms that take thousands of years to populate an area. So, I can't support awarding mining permissions or licenses to areas that have not been carefully studied.' That's also the assessment of more than 900 marine scientists and policy experts from 70 nations who have signed a statement urging the United Nations to hold off on licensing mining operations 'that could result in the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.' Read more: L.A. fires wreaked havoc on the land. Scientists are racing to learn what they've done to the sea What we don't know about the deep ocean is astonishing. Just last year, a paper in the journal Nature showed that the nodule-covered seafloor in a 1.7-million-square-mile area between Hawaii and Mexico — where mining companies are already exploring — was producing 'dark oxygen.' Until that revelation, scientists had considered sunlight, for photosynthesis, essential for ocean oxygen. The 'huge' discovery, as described by the lead researcher, needs more study. Understanding the dark oxygen process could translate into the ability to sustain life on other planets or remake our understanding of how life began on Earth. Mining the seabed raises other concerns besides the need to preserve dark oxygen. The oceans are a carbon sink. If the sediments are constantly stirred up, as they would be in mining, we 'may be reintroducing that carbon back into the water column — and then ultimately back into the atmosphere,' NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad cautioned me back when he ran the agency in 2023. His remarks stand in sharp contrast to the headline on a recent fawning news release from the current NOAA — ''The next gold rush': President Trump unlocks access to critical deep seabed minerals" — and its subhead: "Historic executive order will boost economic growth, support national security.' Read more: How humanity's ear-splitting racket deafens whales and other marine animals The mining companies like to argue that scraping the bottom of the deep ocean is itself a climate solution and can be accomplished with appropriate ecosystem safeguards. The nodules are rich in manganese, copper, nickel and cobalt, key constituents of battery-powered clean energy, such as EVs. 'You've got to have a planetary perspective,' the Metal Company's chief scientist Greg Stone insists, but critics question the environmental vision of the mining industry. Thirty-three nations, including France and New Zealand, have called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining until the world's largest habitat is better understood. Corporate customers including Google, Samsung, Philips, Volvo and BMW have pledged to keep deep-sea minerals out of their electric cars and other products. The United States during the Biden administration supported a take-it-slow approach. Deep-sea mining 'is not ready for prime time,' Monica Medina, assistant secretary of State for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs, told me two years ago. For the present, Trump's Secretary of State Marco Rubio is retaining that post but not that policy position. Read more: Great Pacific Garbage Patch could be eliminated in 10 years, cleanup organization says Like Trump's America, China and India have shown keen interest in quickly bringing commercial mining operations to the planet's last physical frontier. The tiny Pacific Island nation of Nauru, which has a contract with the Metals Company, has been pushing the Seabed Authority to finalize its deep-sea regulations and issue commercial permits. Under Trump's executive order, the United States is barreling ahead regardless, circumventing the Law of the Sea and the best advice of scientists who are pleading for a better understanding of what dredging the sea floor could destroy or unleash. On the high seas in the 21st century, the U.S. may prove to be the world's newest pirate threat. David Helvarg is the executive director of Blue Frontier, an ocean policy group. He co-hosts "Rising Tide: The Ocean Podcast." If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
09-06-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
Donald Trump's plan for pirate mining
On April 24, President Trump issued another questionable executive order, this one calling for deep-sea mining in both federal and international waters. The former is within his control; the latter would be a violation of international law. Although the U.S. is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea — the 1982 treaty ratified by 169 other nations that regulates maritime activities, including deep-sea mining, on and in the high seas — the U.S. has always abided by it. Until now. 'You know we're sometimes an outlier on things like the Law of the Sea treaty,' says Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), ranking member on the House Natural Resources Committee. 'And what [Trump's] doing with deep-sea mining is just making us even more of a lone ranger, if not a pariah.' Global mining consortiums have been eyeing mineral-rich nodules on the ocean floor since the 1970s. Sometimes as large as potatoes, the nodules form around a hard nucleus, such as a grain of sand or a shark's tooth, accumulating minerals out of seawater and sediment over millions of years in the deep benthic zone, the least-studied of the ocean's fragile ecosystems. Given the limits of 20th century technology, mining two to three miles below the ocean's surface proved commercially impractical, to the relief of environmentalists and oceanographers. But a bad idea that promises quick returns never gets old. Today, tech-driven mining corporations, such as the Metals Company of Canada, known as TMC, are leading the way back into the deep. The UN's International Seabed Authority, established under the Law of the Sea treaty, has granted TMC and other companies exploratory permits for deep-sea mining. Using massive mother ships, the companies deploy tank-tread 'robotic excavators' (essentially, underwater bulldozers) or giant vacuum crawlers connected to pipes, pumps and miles of power cable. The Metals Company alone has recovered 4,500 tons of nodules. Now, TMC and the Trump administration are claiming that a novel interpretation of an obscure American law allows the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to issue commercial mining permits in waters the rest of the world considers outside American jurisdiction. In 1960, U.S. Navy Capt. Don Walsh was one of the first two humans to reach the deepest part of the ocean — the so-called Challenger Deep — along with Jacques Piccard, who piloted their bathysphere. Two years before Walsh died in 2023, he explained why opening large swaths of international waters to deep-sea mining would be a mistake. 'It's kind of like clear-cutting the forest,' Walsh told me. 'It doesn't differentiate between the ore and the things that live on the seafloor. And these are organisms that take thousands of years to populate an area. So, I can't support awarding mining permissions or licenses to areas that have not been carefully studied.' That's also the assessment of more than 900 marine scientists and policy experts from 70 nations who have signed a statement urging the United Nations to hold off on licensing mining operations 'that could result in the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.' What we don't know about the deep ocean is astonishing. Just last year, a paper in the journal Nature showed that the nodule-covered seafloor in a 1.7-million-square-mile area between Hawaii and Mexico — where mining companies are already exploring — was producing 'dark oxygen.' Until that revelation, scientists had considered sunlight, for photosynthesis, essential for ocean oxygen. The 'huge' discovery, as described by the lead researcher, needs more study. Understanding the dark oxygen process could translate into the ability to sustain life on other planets or remake our understanding of how life began on Earth. Mining the seabed raises other concerns besides the need to preserve dark oxygen. The oceans are a carbon sink. If the sediments are constantly stirred up, as they would be in mining, we 'may be reintroducing that carbon back into the water column — and then ultimately back into the atmosphere,' NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad cautioned me back when he ran the agency in 2023. His remarks stand in sharp contrast to the headline on a recent fawning news release from the current NOAA — ''The next gold rush': President Trump unlocks access to critical deep seabed minerals' — and its subhead: 'Historic executive order will boost economic growth, support national security.' The mining companies like to argue that scraping the bottom of the deep ocean is itself a climate solution and can be accomplished with appropriate ecosystem safeguards. The nodules are rich in manganese, copper, nickel and cobalt, key constituents of battery-powered clean energy, such as EVs. 'You've got to have a planetary perspective,' the Metal Company's chief scientist Greg Stone insists, but critics question the environmental vision of the mining industry. Thirty-three nations, including France and New Zealand, have called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining until the world's largest habitat is better understood. Corporate customers including Google, Samsung, Philips, Volvo and BMW have pledged to keep deep-sea minerals out of their electric cars and other products. The United States during the Biden administration supported a take-it-slow approach. Deep-sea mining 'is not ready for prime time,' Monica Medina, assistant secretary of State for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs, told me two years ago. For the present, Trump's Secretary of State Marco Rubio is retaining that post but not that policy position. Like Trump's America, China and India have shown keen interest in quickly bringing commercial mining operations to the planet's last physical frontier. The tiny Pacific Island nation of Nauru, which has a contract with the Metals Company, has been pushing the Seabed Authority to finalize its deep-sea regulations and issue commercial permits. Under Trump's executive order, the United States is barreling ahead regardless, circumventing the Law of the Sea and the best advice of scientists who are pleading for a better understanding of what dredging the sea floor could destroy or unleash. On the high seas in the 21st century, the U.S. may prove to be the world's newest pirate threat. David Helvarg is the executive director of Blue Frontier, an ocean policy group. He co-hosts 'Rising Tide: The Ocean Podcast.'
Daily Mirror
28-05-2025
- General
- Daily Mirror
'I talked dozens out of lethal Titan sub trip - one refused and now he's dead'
Ahead of the disaster that will be revisited in tonight's chilling BBC documentary 'Implosion: The Titan Sub Disaster on BBC, expedition consultant Rob McCallum tried to warn Stockton Rush he had "huge concerns" about his submersible One of OceanGate 's top former advisors "talked dozens of clients" out of a trip on the infamous Titan submersible - as it was placing passengers at "extreme risk." The tragedy will be explored in tonight's BBC documentary, 'Implosion: The Titan Sub Disaster, and expedition consultant Rob McCallum previously told how he tried to warn OceanGate boss Stockton Rush in email messages that he had "huge concerns" about his sub. Mr McCallum has led dives to the Titanic shipwreck and other deep-sea spots. In each of these dives, the submersible being used had been approved to reach extreme depths having been classified by a marine classification society. OceanGate's Titan submersible had not. Mr McCallum tried to convince OceanGate boss Stockton Rush that he was placing clients at "extreme risk" during now infamous email exchanges - and even talked prospective customers out of getting in the sub. Speaking exclusively to The Mirror, he said: "I had tried to convince Stockton Rush he was placing himself and his clients at extreme risk during email exchanges 2021-2018. Between 2020-23 I talked dozens of clients out of riding in Titan. Only four actually went and sadly, one of them perished (Hamish Harding). Hamish had dived Challenger Deep with us." Full timeline of Titan sub disappearance Sunday, June 18 Titan submerged at 8am local time with five people onboard and a 96-hour oxygen supply. Operator OceanGate Expeditions lost contact with the sub an hour and 45 minutes later. The Titan was due to resurface at 3pm local time and never did. Monday, June 19 US Coast Guard, Canadian Coast Guard and Canadian Armed Forces launch search for missing submersible. Tuesday, June 20 At 7am local time, the search expands as crews are "looking for any signs of surfacing". First reports of "banging" picked up by radar begin to make headlines. Wednesday, June 21 US Coast Guard announced that a Canadian aircraft with sonar capabilities had "detected underwater noises in the search area". Investigations were continuing to find the "origin of the noises", but they had "yielded negative results". Thursday, June 22 At 7am local time, authorities had not found the Titan sub and the 96-hour oxygen supply was forecasted to run out in the morning. By 11.48am, the US Coast Guard tweeted that "a debris field was discovered within the search area by an ROV near the Titanic" and experts were "evaluating the information". At 2.49pm, OceanGate Expeditions issued a statement saying that all five people aboard were believed to be dead. During a press conference shortly after, the US Coast Guard said it found the tail cone of the Titan sub about 1,600 feet from the bow of the wrecked Titanic. Five pieces of the Titan were recovered including the nose cone and pressure hull. The vessel lost contact with its mother ship on June 18, 2023, nearly an hour and a half into its journey carrying five people some 13,000 feet underwater to visit the shipwreck of the Titanic site. The expert said he had "huge concerns" over the safety of the vehicle which was never classified or approved by maritime safety. An investigation into the implosion is due to deliver its findings in the next couple of weeks. Mr McCallum added: "Primarily my huge concerns about safety. I would NEVER put clients in an unclassed vehicle, and because Titan was constructed of composite materials it was never going to be classed. That is a show-stopper." Two years since the catastrophic implosion which killed Stockton Rush, 61, Hamish Harding, 58, Pakistani tycoon, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman Dawood, 19, and French Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 77, clients have been getting in contact with Mr McCallum to thank him for telling them to avoid the submarine. He added: "A dozen or so (clients) in the weeks after the implosion and now a few more as the anniversary approaches (have approached him). For folks that were thinking of going in Titan, they are grateful for the advice that persuaded them not to." Despite the catastrophic implosion, Mr McCallum believes the submarine industry is safe and that OceanGate was an "outlier" that "went to great lengths" to avoid industry standards. "I think most people can see that Oceangate was an outlier entity operating outside of the industry norms….and in fact they went to great lengths to work around all of the industry standards" he said. "The Titan implosion demonstrated that the penalties for circumventing sound engineering principles and ignoring safety standards is a terrible one."
IOL News
25-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- IOL News
So you think you're smart, hey? Prove it!
Questions 1 Who is South Africa's richest person? 2 How many in a baker's dozen? 3 Which rugby team won the 2024 Currie Cup? 4 How many cricketers in a team? 5 Who is Donald Trump's current vice-president? 6 What is the most popular spice in the world? 7 At what temperature does water boil? 8 Name falafel's the main ingredient. 9 Which spice comes from the Crocus flower and is one of the most expensive spices? 10 What is South Africa's national flower? 11 What is the highest form of law in SA? 12 When it's spring in the southern hemisphere, what is it in the northern hemisphere? 13 What is the fastest running bird in the world? 14 How many stomachs does it have? 15 How many times does a heart beat over the course of an average human lifespan? 16 How many teaspoons are in a tablespoon? 17 What fruit has the most Vitamin C? 18 In what country did the rose originate? 19 What is Challenger Deep? 20 What is the deadliest creature in the world?
NDTV
22-05-2025
- Science
- NDTV
5 Strange Ocean Sites Around The World That Remain A Mystery
The ocean might look calm and peaceful on the surface, but there is much more beneath than meets the eye. Just like the saying goes, never judge a book by its cover; the oceans hide a world full of secrets beneath their quiet exterior. Scientists are still discovering new species, strange formations and unexplained phenomena that challenge what we thought we knew. If you're also intrigued by the world of oceans, you've come to the right place. Below, we'll be sharing five strange ocean sites that remain a mystery to this day. Read on! Here Are 5 Most Mysterious Places In The Oceans: 1. Bermuda Triangle The Bermuda Triangle is the first thing that comes to mind when we think of ocean mysteries. Located in the North Atlantic Ocean, this site has puzzled researchers for many years. Here, several ships and aircraft have vanished, with no trace of where they went. 2. Mariana Trench The Mariana Trench is located in the Pacific Ocean and is the deepest trench on Earth, with a depth of up to 10,994 metres. Its deepest point, known as the Challenger Deep, remains a mystery due to its extreme depth. The pressure and darkness at the bottom make exploration incredibly difficult. 3. Sargasso Sea Another mysterious site is the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic Ocean. Its waters are calm yet unpredictable, and it is famous for the vast mats of unique seaweed called Sargassum that float on its surface. This strange combination creates a habitat unlike any other. 4. Baltic Sea Anomaly The Baltic Sea anomaly is an unusual underwater formation unlike anything you'd expect to find on the sea floor. As per sonar images, an object with puzzling features has been discovered, sparking numerous theories about its mysterious origins. Photo Credit: Pexels 5. The Great Blue Hole The mystery of the Great Blue Hole lies in its unique underwater environment. Researchers are intrigued by the strange changes in water conditions at different depths, such as sudden shifts in temperature, pressure and visibility.
