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Depression marks on seafloor suggest whales visiting prospective mining sites
- gisely 8y agoWhales have started mining. Once they figure out how to burn hydrocarbons underwater the whale industrial revolution will kick off that will be it for humanity.
- Scoping_dindus 8y agoWe'd just legalize whaling if that happened.
- mc32 8y agoTo me this headline is phrased in a way that gives the impression that whales are visiting places because they are prospective mining sites (maybe curious). However, the text makes clear that that outfits are exploring places which coincidentally seem to be used by whales --if confirmed mining plans may need to be altered. [in other words it implies some causation, but there appears to be none]
- mojomark 8y agoTotally read the headline the same way. I thought sea life were fighting 'the man' for a moment. Alternative [more responsible?] headline: Newly Conjectured Whale Habitat May Thwart Deep Sea Mining Prospects
- ianai 8y agoWhere’s the “thwart”? It’s open ocean between Hawaii and Mexico. I don’t know of any political force to stop development regardless.
- Johnny555 8y agoFrom the article: They acknowledge that more research will need to be done to prove that the marks were made by whales—but if their suspicions turn out to be correct, it could impact licensing for mining in such areas.
- PakG1 8y agoNewly Conjectured Whale Habitat May Thwart Deep Sea Mining Prospects I'd still read that as whales fighting 'the man', as in, they need to defend their natural home turf from destructive resource harvesting, ala Ferngully or Avatar.
- userbinator 8y agoThe sentence is a bit unusually phrased; I parsed it several times as prospective mining sites being visited by depressed whales and became rather puzzled.
- ChuckMcM 8y agoAnd in my quick first read I thought they were accusing the whales of making 4000 meter deep tracks (which would be a serious mining operation for a whale!) as opposed to finding tracks at a depth of 4000m, which makes way more sense.
- code_duck 8y agoRight, it should be phrased the other way around - researchers find that prospective mining sites are being placed in deep locations that whales visit to forage for food.
- pasta 8y agoEh, no. They did not discover that mining sites are being placed in deep locations. They discovered that whales visit those locations because they dive deeper than thought. So maybe: "Deep diving whales may cause licensing issues for prospective mining sites".
- code_duck 8y agoThe phrase is ‘deep locations that whales visit’. My intent was to phrase it in a more precise but not necessarily more poetic way. I think the issue is that the mining sites are going to cause issues for whales, which in turn causes issues for mining licensing, due to the environmental portion of regulations. The whales were there first, and your version again inverts the main topic of the article, which is actually beside the point.
- quietbritishjim 8y agoThe use of the word "that" and the lack of a comma means that "that whales visit ..." is a restrictive clause. Contrast with "placed in deep locations, which whales visit ...".
- pvaldes 8y agoAt this moment is just a theory. If you find unexpected damage at the deep sea bottom structure, most of the time the culprit is the man via deep-trawls
- spraak 8y ago> Eager to cash in, companies have begun the process of sending machinery down to the bottom of the sea to set up mining operations. What regulatory body would or does oversee that? That makes me really sad... so much of the earth destroyed, and now one of the last (if not the last?) untouched part of nature.
- garmaine 8y agohttps://www.isa.org.jm https://www.isa.org.jm
- lentil_soup 8y agoMakes me very sad as well, the sea is probably one of the last places where humans haven't destroyed the local mega-fauna
- danparsonson 8y agoWe're working on that though - many different species of pelagics are threatened by human activity :-/
- fabricexpert 8y agoI understand the need to preserve - but what's the point of preserving an environment we'll never, ever see, touch or notice? If the trade off is that we slow economic growth and human prosperity, I'm not sure I'd take it. Of course if there are serious impacts (e.g. climate change or mass extinction of species) then we need to tread carefully.
- nerdponx 8y agoThe idea that an air-breathing animal can free dive to 4000 m is astounding. How long would it take a whale to even get down that far? How do they handle the enormous pressure, and change thereof?
- delbel 8y agoI'm sorry, is that even possible?
- Khaine 8y ago"Elusive Whales Set New Record for Depth and Length of Dives Among Mammals. A new study of elusive Cuvier's beaked whales shows they can dive to nearly 10,000 feet (3,000 meters)." [1] [1] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140326-cuvier-beaked-whale-record-dive-depth-ocean-animal-science/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140326-cuvi...
- delbel 8y ago3000 meters is amazing, but the comment and article above said 4000 -- an additional 1000 meters. at this depth, the whale's body would have tensile strength of something like steel. my bullshit alarm is going off. This is kind of like saying the international space station might be hit by seagals. If I told you that, I'm sure you might have some doubts. ???? whats going on here did they discover a new whale or something
- ceejayoz 8y agoI'm not sure why 3000 is "amazing" but 4000 is unbelievable. Neither one would be tenable without being evolved for it, but deep-diving whales have all sorts of adaptations like exhaling all their air and shutting off blood supply to non-vital organs.
- semi-extrinsic 8y agoDeep-water diving mammals have a wide range of adaptations to survive pressure. Their lungs collapse while they dive, they don't have frontal sinuses like land-living mammals, and they have special venous plexuses inside their air cavities (inner ear etc.) that expand when they dive and reinforce these cavities. Deep-water fish OTOH have been caught in the Mariana trench at down to 8000 meters. No reason why 3000 meters is the magic limit for whales. Bottom line, they don't need the tensile strength of steel as they avoid having body parts in tension or bending (by reducing differential pressures to almost zero), they just rely on the (in)compressibility of the water-filled tissue making up their body.
- TomMckenny 8y agoIt'd be ironic if those sea floor nodules have value now. "Mining" them has an extremely interesting cold-war story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian#Building_Glomar_Explorer,_and_its_cover_story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian#Building_Gloma...
- mrfusion 8y agoDo we really have the technology to mine the deep sea floor? How would that work? We had so much trouble just shutting off the deep horizon well that I figured any deep underwater operation is beyond our capacity.
- mrfusion 8y agoWhy do they need a license for mining if this is in international waters? Who issues the license?
- detaro 8y agoBecause international waters aren't a free-for-all zone, and subject to various treaties/UN conventions. The International Seabed Authority.