Author: Derrick Lester
Derrick Lester is a professor and editor at indeep-project.org. His academic career has been molded by a single, enduring obsession: the sea and all life in it. Drawing from marine biology, oceanography, and the kind of hard-won field knowledge that only comes from spending significant time on and under the water, Derrick's writing has the depth of a scholar thanks to his years of research and teaching experience. His writing delves into the science of marine life with the inquisitiveness of someone who has never fully moved past the wonder of what exists beneath the surface. Derrick hopes to introduce readers to a world that encompasses over 70% of the planet and is, in many respects, still largely unexplored through his contributions to indeep-project.org.
On Skidaway Island, which is located just southeast of Savannah, there is a section of salt marsh where the water no longer behaves as it once did. Now, the tides move a bit further inland. After storms, the mud smells different. For years, researchers at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography have been observing this gradual change, measuring it, cataloging it, debating its implications, and increasingly attempting to draw the attention of those who draft coastal policy in the American South. So far, the story is not dramatic. However, that is practically the point. From the Georgia barrier islands to the…
A number that appears small on paper has a profoundly unsettling quality. In the spring of 2024, the average sea surface temperature worldwide reached 21°C. Just one degree. Two degrees. It sounds almost courteous, the kind of figure you would pass by mindlessly in a data table. However, that reading—the highest since satellite monitoring started in 1982—is the kind of figure that keeps oceanographers up at night. Not because of what it stands for on its own, but rather because of everything it carries with it. 🌊 Key InformationDetailsReport NameCopernicus Ocean State Report (OSR 9 — 9th Edition)Published ByCopernicus Marine…
Nothing was supposed to be found by her. That’s the part that, months later, still feels weird. Maya was halfway through a sophomore project that primarily involved tagging frames in old submersible footage—the kind of tedious work that undergraduates are assigned when no one else wants to do it. The video originated from an archived and mostly forgotten 2016 Shinkai 6500 dive on the Central Indian Ridge. She once confessed that she watched it on a borrowed monitor in a dorm room that had a faint laundry detergent and instant noodle odor. SubjectMaya Ellinger (composite profile based on emerging undergraduate…
A treaty that most Americans have never heard of quietly became international law on the morning of January 17, somewhere off the coast of New York, when a UN flag was raised on time. Nearly two-thirds of the world’s oceans are currently governed by the High Seas Treaty, an ambitious treaty with an awkward name. It was completed by sixty nations. Not one of them was the United States, which made a big deal out of signing the agreement back in September 2023. At the joyous press conferences, no one wanted to focus on the difference between signing and ratification.…
It’s difficult to ignore how rapidly the discourse surrounding deep-sea mining has evolved. Five years ago, the industry marketed itself as a clean-energy narrative: nickel for batteries, cobalt for electric vehicles, and a courteous attempt to save the environment. Now, as you read the more subdued pages of defense procurement journals or stroll through Singapore’s trade halls, you begin to sense something else humming beneath the surface. The ships are larger than they should be. The sensor packages are unfamiliar. Furthermore, the maps of the seafloor that these businesses are covertly creating hardly resemble what a mining engineer would actually…
If you spend any time reading the briefings, you will notice that the climate forecasting community is in a quiet, almost embarrassed mood this year. A developing El Niño was confidently predicted by the major international models last spring; some even hinted at a “Super” event, the kind that the media refers to as Godzilla. A lot of that didn’t work out as the headlines suggested twelve months later. Oceanographers, who are typically cautious with their language, have begun to use a word that they hardly ever use in public. Incorrect. The change in tone is difficult to ignore. The…
A practice that virtually no one is aware of but that subtly modifies the seafloor across continents has an odd quality. Deep-sea tailings disposal, or DSTD as it is known in the industry, is one of those industrial processes that is primarily hidden from view. This is due in part to the fact that it takes place under hundreds of meters of seawater and, to put it mildly, the regulatory environment surrounding it is, to put it mildly, inconsistent. Each nation must set its own boundaries because pipeline discharges from coastal mines are not covered by the main international marine…
The idea that a museum in South Kensington, which is more well-known for its Victorian arches and dinosaur skeletons, would one day decide to create a phone app for those who research the deepest, darkest regions of the ocean is subtly lovely. Deep Sea ID isn’t very eye-catching. It makes no effort to be. However, once you realize what it does, it begins to seem like one of those little, practical inventions that ought to have been around years ago. The World Register of Deep-Sea Species, a taxonomic database that was introduced in December 2012 as part of a larger…
Building a constituency for the deep ocean is an odd endeavor. The majority of people won’t ever see it. No school field trips to a hydrothermal vent, no postcards from 4,000 meters below the surface. However, decisions regarding its future are being made in secret somewhere in that dark column of water, which is cold, pressurized, and biologically richer than anyone could have predicted forty years ago. mining licenses. fishing limits. rights to genetic prospecting. People who have rarely visited the deep are gradually dividing it. Profile: Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative (DOSI)DetailsOrganization TypeGlobal network of deep-sea expertsYear Founded2013Focus AreasScience, policy,…
The sound of the high seas has always been reminiscent of an old novel. Whales, pirates, and sailors who vanished. However, the romance quickly fades when you sit with the numbers for a short while. Almost two-thirds of the ocean on Earth is located outside national borders. No coast guard, no flag, no explicit regulations. That size was viewed as a kind of permission slip for decades. Go fishing there. That’s mine. There, dump. Not many people inquired about the price. SubjectHigh Seas Treaty (BBNJ Agreement) – Caribbean Ratification OutlookTreaty AdoptedMarch 2023 by the United Nations General AssemblyFocus RegionAntigua and…