From seafloor depths to fishing activity, free software brings ocean data together - Phys.org

The deep sea may seem very far away, but it's more connected to our world than you might think. In the South China Sea, for instance, nutrient-rich waters well up from the deep, sustaining coastal fisheries that support the livelihoods of about 3.7 million people each year. Mining companies also have their eyes on the deep sea, where they can see riches in polymetallic nodules, cobalt-rich rocks, and other mineral deposits. A new paper from scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences gives a preview of how deep-sea mining can rapidly disrupt the microbes central to nutrient cycling on the South China Sea floor. The results are reported in the scientific journal Total Environment Microbiology. In 2020, samples of cobalt-rich rock were collected during a mining trial in the South China Sea, at around 1,300 meters below sea level. As is typical of deep-sea mining, the rocks were crushed into small pieces first, and then transported to the surface. "A large amount of sediment and other particulate matter were stirred up during mining, and this process had several direct and indirect effects on the insitu microbial ecosystem," the authors note.