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There are loads of unknown (to science) deep sea sharks out there, most of them quite small. A friend of mine in grad school spent several trips on a deep sea t

There are loads of unknown (to science) deep sea sharks out there, most of them quite small. A friend of mine in grad school spent several trips on a deep sea trawler out of Madagascar and described multiple new species.

gr_norm 2mo ago
Wow! It's amazing how little it seems we've explored of the deep ocean, whenever I hear about it. A whole other world down there, lying in wait... the frontiers of our own planet have yet to be conquered!
- randallsquared 2mo ago
  There's so many kinds of microbe we don't have catalogued. The last 30-40 years have been pretty astonishing in that regard.
- hackable_sand 2mo ago
  Conquered
- nkrisc 2mo ago
  I think we should be doing less conquering of the planet we live on.
- erikerikson 2mo ago
  s/conquered/experienced/ Or s/conquered/discovered/ ...
- FabHK 2mo ago
  Indeed. Until around 2021 or so, more people had been to the moon than to the bottom of the ocean (Challenger Deep). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_Deep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_Deep
doodlebugging 2mo ago
Sometimes the first opportunity to see something occurs while you are actively destroying the habitat where it lives. Sounds like your friend's work took advantage of the access that deep sea trawlers would have to species unknown to science, allowing them to have a rough idea of their distribution. In a sense this is very useful to researchers who can argue the case that trawling is too destructive for that area due to the presence of species new to science. Trawling and mining, both activities mentioned in the article, can be very destructive to habitats. With the global race to lock up sources of rare elements and elements that are more commonly found in conflict zone nations the sea floor is seen as the best source for some of these. The manganese nodules that I learned about in geoscience classes decades ago are targeted by miners today who will have no qualms about scraping the seafloor clean just as those fishing fleets strip the oceans of wild fish species.
- __bb 2mo ago
  > The manganese nodules that I learned about in geoscience classes decades ago are targeted by miners today who will have no qualms about scraping the seafloor clean This (and the concept of extinction credits) is an opening plot point in the book “Venomous Lumpsucker”, which I found a good read.
  - doodlebugging 2mo ago
    Thank you for that recommendation! I read a lot and this sounds interesting.
- XorNot 2mo ago
  No one is mining manganese from the sea floor. The whole idea was a CIA cover story for a mission to recover a sunken Soviet submarine that the Americans knew the location of but the Soviets didn't. They needed an explanation for a cargo ship headed out to a specific area with deep sea construction equipment on board: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian
  - juahan 2mo ago

gr_norm 2mo ago

Wow! It's amazing how little it seems we've explored of the deep ocean, whenever I hear about it. A whole other world down there, lying in wait... the frontiers of our own planet have yet to be conquered!

randallsquared 2mo ago
There's so many kinds of microbe we don't have catalogued. The last 30-40 years have been pretty astonishing in that regard.
hackable_sand 2mo ago
Conquered
nkrisc 2mo ago
I think we should be doing less conquering of the planet we live on.
erikerikson 2mo ago
s/conquered/experienced/ Or s/conquered/discovered/ ...
FabHK 2mo ago
Indeed. Until around 2021 or so, more people had been to the moon than to the bottom of the ocean (Challenger Deep). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_Deep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_Deep

doodlebugging 2mo ago

Sometimes the first opportunity to see something occurs while you are actively destroying the habitat where it lives. Sounds like your friend's work took advantage of the access that deep sea trawlers would have to species unknown to science, allowing them to have a rough idea of their distribution. In a sense this is very useful to researchers who can argue the case that trawling is too destructive for that area due to the presence of species new to science. Trawling and mining, both activities mentioned in the article, can be very destructive to habitats. With the global race to lock up sources of rare elements and elements that are more commonly found in conflict zone nations the sea floor is seen as the best source for some of these. The manganese nodules that I learned about in geoscience classes decades ago are targeted by miners today who will have no qualms about scraping the seafloor clean just as those fishing fleets strip the oceans of wild fish species.

__bb 2mo ago
> The manganese nodules that I learned about in geoscience classes decades ago are targeted by miners today who will have no qualms about scraping the seafloor clean This (and the concept of extinction credits) is an opening plot point in the book “Venomous Lumpsucker”, which I found a good read.
- doodlebugging 2mo ago
  Thank you for that recommendation! I read a lot and this sounds interesting.
XorNot 2mo ago
No one is mining manganese from the sea floor. The whole idea was a CIA cover story for a mission to recover a sunken Soviet submarine that the Americans knew the location of but the Soviets didn't. They needed an explanation for a cargo ship headed out to a specific area with deep sea construction equipment on board: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian
- juahan 2mo ago