Author: Derrick Lester

In the video, a researcher’s voice interrupts the stillness with three words: “What is that?” somewhere between the dark blue of deep water and the abrupt appearance of something unthinkable. It’s the type of question that doesn’t anticipate an immediate response. And in this instance, it took some time to find the solution. Deep within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in 2022, the exploration ship Nautilus was silently navigating the Liliʻuokalani Ridge, a volcanic seamount chain located just north of the Hawaiian Islands. The mission was methodical: collect manganese crust samples, record the seafloor, and delve a little deeper into…

There is no crew as it sits peacefully in Monterey Bay’s swells ten nautical miles off the coast of California. Not a captain. At dawn, there is no deck hand checking the instruments. All that is visible is a low, trimaran-shaped hull floating on the water, its sensors doing what sensors do—watching, recording, and transmitting—and its solar panels absorbing the light that the Pacific provides. Open Ocean Robotics, a British Columbian company, created the DataXplorer, which has been available for nineteen weeks. Additionally, it appears that no one is eager to return it. To be honest, that’s the whole point.…

Hurricane season begins at a time when the organization in charge of monitoring those storms is losing its trained observers, which is subtly unsettling. When the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season officially began on June 1st, NOAA was understaffed, underfunded, and, if a growing number of scientists and local voices are to be believed, perilously close to a breaking point that the majority of Americans are still unaware of. Federal budget cuts are not eliminating fat from an overgrown bureaucracy, according to a recent opinion piece circulating out of Mississippi. The system that sustains coastal communities during the worst weeks of…

The possibility that life a kilometer below the ocean’s surface may be subtly restructuring itself in reaction to a crisis it did not cause is almost unsettling. No panic, no headlines. Time, iron, and chemistry alone. And, it seems, not as long as anyone had anticipated. The marine science community is paying close attention to a recent study that was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and for good reason. Researchers have discovered that the microscopic organism Nitrosopumilus maritimus, which is a member of the archaea group, seems to be modifying its metabolism to cope with…

Witnessing a mining company’s stock soar thirty percent due to a letter from a federal ocean agency is an odd feeling. Not a launch of a product. Not an announcement of revenue. a letter attesting to the accuracy of a paperwork application. For better or worse, that is the world in which The Metals Company currently operates, and it is sufficient to influence markets. TMC’s USA B exploration license application was officially certified by NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is better known for tracking hurricanes and reporting fish populations. This led to the kind of investor excitement…

There is a specific type of rage that results from being disregarded rather than just being angry. On December 14, 2023, you witnessed Native Hawaiians paddling through open water in traditional outrigger canoes to confront one of the biggest deep-sea mining vessels on the planet. Hidden Gem was the name of the ship. In the context, the name seemed almost cruel. It was thought that the ship, which was run by the maritime company Allseas and operated by the Canadian company The Metals Company, was transporting over 3,000 tons of polymetallic nodules that had been extracted from the ocean floor…

When scientists begin to observe the sun a bit more closely than usual, a certain kind of unease sets in. A G3 geomagnetic storm watch was recently issued by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. Although it hasn’t caused widespread panic, which is rare, it has quietly unsettled those who work as managers of satellite systems and power infrastructure. On a five-point scale, G3 is the third level and is categorized as “Strong.” It is not catastrophic. However, it’s also not ignorable. The sun must be viewed as a chaotic system that frequently launches magnetized plasma into space rather than as…

Hundreds of miles southwest of American Samoa’s coastline, about 3.4 miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, something subtly remarkable is taking place. The first pictures of geologic seafloor samples taken during a hydrographic survey project that covered more than 30,000 square nautical miles of federal waters in the U.S. exclusive economic zone off American Samoa were made public by NOAA in April. Lumpy, dark-colored nodules resting on the seafloor are visible in the photos; they’re not particularly striking to look at, but they’re the kind of discovery that makes mineral economists stand up a bit. The National Oceanic…

Currently, a ship with NOAA Corps officers and professional mariners on board is in a Pacific harbor getting ready to map over 8,000 square nautical miles of federal waters close to Kingman Reef and Palmyra Atoll. The Rainier is its name. It’s a hydrographic survey vessel, the type of ship that oceanographers have long silently praised as a representation of rigorous, serious science. However, the weight behind this specific mission is different. This time, the maps it creates are more than just maps of the ocean. They are used to determine what merits further investigation. The response in scientific circles…

For a century, the enormous squid was mostly a myth—bits of tentacle removed from sperm whales’ stomachs, partially digested proof of something massive existing far below the surface of the earth. Scientists were aware of its presence. They were unable to demonstrate that it was alive. That all changed on March 9th, when a remotely operated vehicle descended through the chilly black water close to the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic and caught something that no one in the field had ever seen: a massive squid that was alive, breathing, and drifting. The video was taken during a…