MTR100: Deep-sea Mining May Prove Pivotal in the Climate Change Discussion
is known about the seabed and its ecosystems, and the long-term impacts of mining are impossible to determine at this point. On September 8, French Polynesia became the most recent territory to call for a ban on DSM, calling out their “cousins of the Pacific”—Kiribati, Nauru and the Cook Islands—for pushing forward with mining despite only having explored about 5% of the seabed. “If we have to examine what’s on the ocean floor, it should be solely for the acquisition of knowledge, not for exploitation purposes,” said Minister for Marine Resources Heremoana Maamaatuaiahu
Sustainable Seabed Mining: Impossible Mining Partners Up with Boskalis
Impossible Mining, a company developing sustainable seabed mining technology, has said it has partnered up with the Dutch marine services company Boskalis to explore the integration of its robotics with vessel operations for selective harvesting of nodules in the Cook Islands, in the South Pacific Ocean.In November 2021, Impossible Mining, which describes itself as a public benefits corporation based in Silicon Valley, said it was developing the technology to mine the seabed without causing serious harm. It said at the time it had secured funding to develop prototypes of an autonomous
Tonga Tsunami Waves Are Still Being Felt in Australia
in complex ways.Before communications to Tonga were lost, video reports showed significant tsunami wave flooding and inundation which damaged roads, buildings, and infrastructure such as seawalls.As well as affecting Australia, tsunami waves also travelled across the whole Pacific Ocean to Fiji, the Cook Islands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, along both the North and South American coastlines and to Japan. Some of these places reported flooding and localized inundation.Fortunately, Australia didn’t experience significant inundation due to this tsunami. The effect was most visible in estuaries, which
Largest Coral Reef Survey and Mapping Expedition Completed
to coral reefs at a critical point in time. These findings will be used as a benchmark for future research and analysis. They can also help countries prioritize areas for conservation and track changes to their reefs over time. “Several countries, including The Bahamas, Jamaica, Fiji, and the Cook Islands, used data collected on the Expedition to enact new conservation measures, such as marine protected areas and fishery closures, to protect their reefs.”What the Expedition found was just as remarkable as what it took to collect the data. Evidence of the unfolding coral reef crisis was observed
Subsea Mining: All Eyes on Marine Minerals Offshore Norway
just started work on downhole gamma neutron analysers which analyse backscatter from neutrons sent into a bore hole using a spectrometer. A prototype has been tested in salt water at Ciro in Australia got. Parionos says they’re looking to build a unit for testing in a well in coming months.The Cook Islands in the Pacific are at a similar phase, says Jens Laugesen, Chief Specialist Environmental Risk Management, DNV.The Cook Islands cover just 240 sq km of land, but their exclusive economic zone of ocean amounts to 2 million square kilometers. A study carried out over 40 years suggests there&rsquo
NASA, KSLOF Partner to Fast-track Coral Reef Mapping
as well as the Red Sea. In addition to scientific reports on the state of the reefs, the Expedition resulted in the creation of 65,000 square kilometers of high-resolution coral reef habitat maps —or about one-fifth of the world’s coral reefs.Coral reef habitat map of Aitutaki in the Cook Islands, created with satellite data combined with field data from the Global Reef Expedition. Copyright Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation (KSLOF)“When the Foundation launched the Global Reef Expedition in 2006, it was an incredibly ambitious undertaking. We were inventing the technology
Ship Repair: Inside the $60m Refit of RV Roger Revelle
expedition on the all-new R/V Roger Revelle got underway in early November, an essential research mission led by UC Santa Barbara to retrieve ocean bottom seismometers measuring seismic activity and to collect rocks from seamounts and underwater volcanoes.“The ship went down to about the Cook Islands where we recovered ocean bottom seismometers,” said Appelgate. “We retrieved 30 out of 30 of these ocean bottom seismometers, which is terrific as these things are worth half a million dollars each; the data on them are priceless. They had been up for a year and they were running out
Manatua Consortium Approves Cable Lay
for the installation of the Manatua – One Polynesia Cable. The new optical fiber submarine cable will span the South Pacific transforming speed, capacity, resilience and affordability. The six landings will be in Tahiti and Bora Bora in French Polynesia, Rarotonga and Aitutaki in the Cook Islands, Apia, Samoa and Niue. It is the first fiber connectivity to Niue and the Cook Islands. Manatua is a groundbreaking collaboration initiated in April 2017 with the signing of an international treaty by the President of French Polynesia, the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, the Prime
SubCom: Manatua Cable Contract is in Force
the contract is in force for the supply and installation of the Manatua submarine cable system. The Manatua Consortium is composed of: The Office des Postes et Télécommunications (OPT), the telecoms operator of French Polynesia; Avaroa Cables Limited (ACL), the cable operator of Cook Islands, Telecom Niue Limited (TNL), the telecoms operator of Niue; and Samoa Submarine Cable Company (SSCC), the cable operator of the Independent State of Samoa. The Manatua Cable will provide connections from Apia, Samoa to Toahotu, Tahiti, with branching units for landings to Niue; Aitutaki,
February 2024
