Blurs

Thousands of metres beneath the ocean surface lies an extraordinary world of ancient geological formations, unusual organisms and ecosystems that scientists are only beginning to understand.  Now, companies and governments are preparing to extract valuable minerals from the seabed. The potential rewards are enormous. So are the risks. Could humanity be about to destroy one of Earth's last great wildernesses in pursuit of the materials needed to power its technological future? An industrial revolution beneath the waves Imagine an industrial mining operation taking place more than four kilometres beneath the ocean surface. There is no sunlight. Temperatures are close to freezing. The pressure is hundreds of times greater than at sea level. Yet, scattered across the vast darkness of the seabed, lie millions of mineral-rich rocks containing metals increasingly important to modern civilisation. These are polymetallic nodules. They can contain manganese, nickel, copper and cobalt, among ...

At depths of up to 7 kilometres, scientists have discovered hundreds of whale fossils — and living ecosystems thriving on whales that have fallen there today. There is a place on Earth where the dead don't simply disappear. They become ecosystems. Far beneath the Indian Ocean, in darkness that sunlight has never reached, the bodies of whales sink through thousands of metres of water and eventually come to rest on the seabed. Their flesh attracts scavengers. Their bones become habitats. Bacteria extract chemical energy from what remains. Specialised worms bore into the skeleton. Molluscs live from the chemistry generated by decomposition.  And after the animals themselves have vanished, their bones can remain behind for geological periods of time. Now scientists have discovered a vast accumulation of these remains in one of the least explored environments on Earth. It stretches for approximately 1,200 kilometres across the Diamantina Zone of the southeastern Indian Ocean. Researcher...

Imagine standing in the middle of the ocean. There is no island on the horizon. No coastline. No lighthouse. No passing fishing boat. In every direction, land is thousands of kilometres away.  You are closer to the emptiness of the Pacific than to almost anywhere inhabited by humans. This place exists. It is known as Point Nemo — the oceanic pole of inaccessibility — and it lies in the remote South Pacific Ocean. But Point Nemo is more than simply a dot on a map. It is one of the strangest geographical locations on Earth, a place where isolation becomes almost absolute. And, remarkably, it has also become associated with something rather unusual: the final resting place of spacecraft. Where exactly is Point Nemo? Point Nemo lies at approximately 48°52.6′S, 123°23.6′W. According to NOAA, the nearest land is roughly 2,688 kilometres away. Three pieces of land are approximately equally distant: Ducie Island in the Pitcairn Islands, Motu Nui near Easter Island, and Maher Island off Ant...