Author: Derrick Lester

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…

A calm hurricane season has a subtle unnerving quality. Communities in Florida, Louisiana, and Georgia that have spent decades rebuilding after Katrina, Irma, and Ian typically react with something akin to relief when meteorologists declare that El Niño is controlling Atlantic storm activity. However, that feeling of security is based on a partial image. Because El Niño tends to return what it takes away from the Atlantic—sometimes violently—somewhere else. For those who haven’t kept up with its rhythms, El Niño is a rise in sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central equatorial Pacific. Its fingerprints appear in weather systems…

Pouring €25 million into a location that is never exposed to sunlight has a subtly bold quality. There are no cameras following you down there. The terrain is not captured by any satellite image. However, France has determined that the ocean floor, particularly everything below 1,000 meters, merits the same significant investment that the world typically sets aside for semiconductor factories and aerospace programs. From the outside, at least, it seems like an oddly brave wager that is also long overdue. The money is provided by France’s larger France 2030 initiative, a comprehensive €54 billion plan to revitalize the nation’s…

The fact that we know more about the surface of Mars than we do about the bottom of our own oceans is subtly amazing. This summer, a 28-day expedition aboard NOAA’s research vessel Okeanos Explorer is taking action to address this fact, which may sound like the kind of statistic someone says at a dinner party to sound intriguing. Starting in July 2026, the Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority and NOAA Ocean Exploration will venture into deep Pacific waters that have simply never been thoroughly examined. not accurately mapped in the modern era. not included in the sample. not captured…