The fate of the deep sea is being decided behind closed doors, plastic in the deepest trench, memories of whales, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: March 4, 2019

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

• Last week was a huge week for deep-sea mining and there’s still more coming. Catch up on the latest!
  • Species threatened by deep-sea mining.
  • The future of deep seabed mining.
  • Deep seabed mining: key questions.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

• Legendary submarine pilot Erika Bergman, a couple dudes, and a group of scientists make exciting discovery inside Great Blue Hole and What Erika Bergman, Richard Branson, Fabien Cousteau, and Aquatica Submarines Found In Belize’s Great Blue Hole.

Jetsam (what we’re reading from around the web)

• In the Mariana Trench, the lowest point in any ocean, every tiny animal tested had plastic pollution hiding in its gut.

“I imagine pollution in the Mariana Trench is an abstract concept for most people, but for those of us living in the Mariana Islands this has consequences for what ends up on our dinner plates,” says Angelo Villagomez, an indigenous Chamorro from the Mariana Islands who works for the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project. “So what can we do? The International Union for the Conservation of Nature recommends we protect 30 percent of every marine habitat to address human impacts, but that will only help if we’re also sustainably managing the remaining 70 percent, reducing carbon emissions, and limiting the pollution being dumped in the ocean in the first place.”

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• Blue whales remember best times and places to find prey.
• Newly dated clam gardens show the technology is much older than previously thought. Clam Digging through 3,500 Years of Indigenous History.
• It started as an experiment, now the predictions are coming true. The Shells of Wild Sea Butterflies Are Already Dissolving.

• This would be very bad. Is the Deep Pacific Cooling?
• A Future of Heavier Rainstorms Could Be a Death Sentence For Corals.
• Stuck on you (for millions of years): Organic matter on oceanic minerals.
• In the Future, Jellyfish Slime May Be the Solution to Microplastic Pollution.
• Oh. Evidence For Global Warming Passes Physics’ Gold Standard Threshold.

Lagan (what we’re reading from the peer-reviewed literature)

• Ehlman and friends (2019) Prey Responses to Exotic Predators: Effects of Old Risks and New Cues. DOI: 10.1086/702252.
• Hofman (2019) Stopping overexploitation of living resources on the high seas. DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2019.02.037.

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