Author: Derrick Lester

Ocean scientists experience a certain kind of dread that develops gradually. It doesn’t make an announcement. Data points, satellite readings, and the silent glances exchanged during conferences when another temperature anomaly defies explanation are just a few examples of how it builds up. Since last summer, that dread has been steadily growing off the U.S. West Coast, and it’s difficult to ignore at the moment. Since 2025, a massive marine heatwave has engulfed Pacific waters, extending thousands of miles from the California coastline and encompassing a large triangle that includes Hawaii, British Columbia, and Mexico. This is only the third…

Billions of potato-sized mineral formations have been quietly building for millions of years somewhere on the Pacific Ocean’s abyssal floor, about 4,000 meters below the surface where no sunlight has ever reached. They have never been touched commercially. This is going to change, and an increasing number of environmental organizations are working quickly—possibly too late—to prevent it. The Metals Company, a Canadian company that operates through its American subsidiary TMC USA, has filed two permit applications. Environment America, Environmental Action, and several affiliated organizations have been urging the public to flood NOAA with comments opposing these applications. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone,…

On a March morning in 2026, an aerial survey team off the coast of Crescent Beach, Florida, noticed something that caused people to pause in the middle of a conversation. In the shallow coastal water, a young whale, barely ten years old and just past reproductive maturity, was swimming alongside a newborn calf. Mirror, catalog number 4617, is her name, and she recently became a first-time mother. That season, it was the 23rd confirmed calf. the most in 17 years. Even so, the researchers were unable to fully celebrate without a silent, uneasy asterisk in the air. In late April,…

One type of strategy is one that doesn’t make an announcement. It doesn’t come with full-page newspaper ads or lobbyists in suits. It comes with a check for a cultural festival, a sponsorship logo discreetly sewn onto a banner for a local event, or perhaps a book written for an elderly person in need of assistance. The money has already served its purpose by the time anyone realizes what is going on. At least that’s what critics in the Cook Islands think has been happening for more than four years. It is alleged that deep-sea mining companies, which are still…

The announcement of Strohm’s contract with Allseas in February 2021 didn’t exactly create the kind of buzz that Silicon Valley product launches do. No live broadcast. There is no countdown clock. Just a modest headline in the offshore energy trade press and a press release from the Netherlands. However, if you think about that announcement for a little while longer, you’ll notice a subtle indication that the commercial infrastructure surrounding deep-sea mining is starting to take shape. The agreement itself is technical and specific. Strohm, formerly known as Airborne Oil & Gas, consented to provide Allseas with a Thermoplastic Composite…

The choice to remove Ocean Station Papa from the Gulf of Alaska’s floor is subtly unsettling. It’s almost physically unsettling, not just politically. Located in the center of the Alaska Gyre, a massive rotating current that has influenced Pacific weather, fisheries, and marine ecosystems for millennia, the station is anchored to the seabed more than 14,000 feet below the surface. Since the end of the Cold War, it has been down there gathering data. And at some point in the upcoming year, it won’t be. The Ocean Observatories Initiative, a network of about 900 instruments dispersed throughout the Pacific and…

There are billions of undisturbed polymetallic nodules on the seafloor somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, four to six kilometers below the surface. They have been sitting there for millions of years, gradually building up manganese, nickel, and cobalt in coarse, potato-sized lumps. They won’t be seen by most people. As it happens, the majority of people also failed to notice when the US government declared them ready for harvest. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration completed extensive changes to its deep seabed mining regulations on January 21, 2026. The regulations had remained largely unchanged since 1981. As is always the…

A 23-foot robotic boat sailing straight into a Category 4 hurricane while all other ships on Earth are heading in the opposite direction is subtly amazing. No crew, no hesitation, no instinct to protect oneself. Simply sensors, a strengthened wing, and a massive volume of data returning to scientists on land. This is precisely what Saildrone has been doing since 2021, and this summer, the company is going out once more in collaboration with NOAA for the fifth year in a row. During the height of Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from August to November, ten Saildrone Explorer unmanned surface…

The annual FEMA-NOAA hurricane season briefing has an almost ceremonial quality. Senior officials convene, comforting words are disseminated, and a line like “we’re ready” almost immediately appears in a press release. It was the same this year. Earlier this month, FEMA’s Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Administrator, Robert J. Fenton Jr., appeared in front of cameras to convey precisely that message: composed, methodical, and self-assured. “It’s in our DNA,” he stated regarding being ready for hurricanes. The words came out easily. However, genuine preparedness and well-spoken words are not always the same. A few days later, Sabotaging Our…

Just before Jialing Cai rolls backward off the side of a boat at midnight, the ocean beneath her is pitch-black. No depth, no bottom, and no point of reference. Just a thin string of dim lights falling into nothing, and a surface buoy above. The majority would remain on the boat. Cai enters anyhow. She is a blackwater photographer, one of the few people in the world who actually does this on a regular basis, let alone with an award-winning eye. The idea behind the practice is almost ridiculously straightforward: dive into the open ocean at night, drift, and wait…