The announcement has an almost theatrical quality. Somewhere in the open Pacific, a thirty-story floating island withstands typhoons that would destroy regular ships. The Deep-Sea All-Weather Resident Floating Research Facility is the name given by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The Open-Sea Floating Island is a more amiable moniker that the Chinese media has chosen, possibly detecting the aridity of that appellation. If the chronology is accurate, it will be sitting somewhere by 2030, half-submerged, movable, anchored, and observing. Project NameDeep-Sea All-Weather Resident Floating Research Facility (“Open-Sea Floating Island”)DeveloperShanghai Jiao Tong UniversityHeight30 stories (semi-submersible design)DisplacementRoughly 86,000 tons — comparable to a…
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.
When you read about Kaleigh Block, the first thing you notice is how nonchalantly she discusses locations that practically no one on Earth will ever visit. She is a doctoral candidate at the University of Delaware. She has also visited a titanium sphere the size of a little bathroom on the floor of the East Pacific Rise, several thousand meters below the surface. The majority of respondents mention a desk when describing their workplace. Block talks about a vent field where the rocks are alive and the water reaches 400 degrees Celsius. NameKaleigh BlockAffiliationUniversity of Delaware, College of Earth, Ocean…
Something subtly noteworthy is taking place in the waters near Madeira, but it’s not the kind of tale that usually makes headlines. There are no hard-hat politicians. No big trade or defense announcements. A cooperation that has been gradually coming together since 2019 and just two sleek autonomous submarines developed in the UK are currently headed for one of the deepest sections of the North Atlantic. Partnership SnapshotDetailsLead UK InstitutionNational Oceanography Centre (NOC)Portuguese PartnerRegional Agency for the Development of Research, Technology and Innovation (ARDITI)Deal Value€4.3 millionEquipment Transferred2 Autosub Long Range (ALR) autonomous underwater vehiclesOperating Depths1,500 metres and 6,000 metresOperational HubOcean…
The Atlantic abyss doesn’t look like much, according to scientists. Just mud. Brown muck, endless, chilly, and beyond the reach of any rover’s headlamp. However, after a few minutes of watching the live broadcast from a research vessel, something changes. A transparent worm floats by. Almost lavender in color, a sea cucumber trudges on the muck as if it had a place. Watching this gives us the impression that the deep ocean is more like a slow, patient metropolis than an empty plain, one that we have been passing by without ever knocking. Mission / DetailInformationProject NameSMARTEX (Seabed Mining And…
Only on a small Pacific island in the late afternoon, when the lagoon has turned the color of old glass and the wind has subsided, can you hear a certain kind of silence. Fishermen arrive gradually. Kids run along the seawall. A government accountant is looking at a spreadsheet somewhere beyond the postcard vista, wondering how long the numbers will last. It is difficult to ignore the fact that these islands are undergoing a fundamental change that goes beyond environmental changes. It is economic in nature and is occurring more quickly than the policy discussions surrounding it. FieldDetailRegion CoveredAsia-Pacific, with…
When I initially learned of a whale stranding connected to an offshore seismic survey, I thought it sounded almost too good to be true. Undoubtedly a coincidence. Then, year after year, coastline after coastline, the same pattern continued to emerge. In February, as seismic surveys were being conducted in the same waters off Greece, another unusual stranding had place. It makes sense that scientists are cautious in what they say about these topics. However, reading the literature gives the impression that there is less space for coincidences. Key InformationDetailsTopicAnthropogenic underwater noise pollutionPrimary SourcesShipping, seismic surveys, naval sonar, deep-sea miningMarine Species…
Beijing has become rather adept at a certain type of announcement, the kind that arrives on a Tuesday, is cloaked in technical jargon, and only then discloses its true meaning. That pattern is almost perfectly matched by the publication of China’s “seabed chemical element map” of its eastern waters. It appears to be standard scientific housekeeping at first glance. Surveys for twenty years. Twenty thousand places for sampling. A final compilation of a geochemical atlas. However, if you sit with it for a while, the image becomes clearer. Key InformationDetailsAnnouncing BodyChina’s Ministry of Natural ResourcesReported ByCCTV News, Global TimesRegion CoveredBohai…
A six-story steel platform in the middle of disputed waters, with no nation permitted to get close enough to see what’s actually going on inside, has a subtly unsettling quality. That is the current state of affairs in the Yellow Sea, and it has been going on since at least 2022, mostly behind closed doors. The building is known as Atlantic Amsterdam. It was constructed for the offshore oil sector. China claims to be in charge of fish farms now. To be honest, most Western analysts who have been observing this situation are unsure of what to believe, just as…
Trillions of black, knobby lumps that appear almost embarrassingly ordinary sit somewhere three miles below the surface of the central Pacific, dispersed across an underwater plain bigger than most European nations. They look like charcoal that has been burned. Depending on who you ask, they are either the most environmentally friendly solution to climate change yet discovered or a slow-motion ecological error for which we will have to apologize for the rest of the century. Cobalt is the metal that is most sought after, and the lumps are polymetallic nodules. It’s difficult to ignore how rapidly the topic has changed.…
When most people think of the state-of-the-art in ocean science, they do not picture the seminar room on the upper floor of the Leibniz Institute in Warnemölle. The chairs don’t match. The carpet has the worn appearance of a structure that has seen thousands of debates over bacteria, oxygen, and salinity over the years. A postdoc from Kiel and a visiting researcher from Woods Hole sit next to each other on a Thursday afternoon, squinting at a slide that depicts oxygen depletion in the Gotland Deep. Although it’s a minor scene, the effects of these discussions are starting to spread…