Latest news with #Pacific Ocean
News.com.au
2 days ago
- Climate
- News.com.au
Tsunami warning issued after huge earthquake off the coast of Russia
A tsunami alert has been issued after multiple earthquakes struck off the cost of Russia. The strongest of those quakes, which were measured in quick succession, came in at 7.5-magnitude on the Richter scale. A tsunami watch is now in effect for the American state Hawaii, which is located in the northeast Pacific Ocean. Alerts were also issued for Guam and American Samoa, but have since been rescinded. According to the United States Geological Survey, there were three earthquakes in quick succession. The first was at 5.0-magnitude, the second at 6.7, and the last at 7.4, which was a fraction higher according to other measurements. The USGS warned that 'hazardous tsunami waves are possible' within 300 kilometres of the epicentre in the Pacific, off the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. That city has a population of about 160,000 people.
France 24
3 days ago
- Science
- France 24
Restoring sea floor after mining may not be possible, researchers warn
One of the last wild zones on the planet, the sea floor is a coveted frontier for companies and countries eager to access minerals that are in high demand for emerging technologies such as electric cars. Particularly coveted are potato-sized nodules containing cobalt, nickel, copper and manganese, that are found in abundance on the seabed in the central Pacific Ocean. Companies eager to vacuum up these polymetallic nodules say they can do it with minimal risk to the deep-sea environment. But ocean defenders have battled against what they see as the advent of an industry that will threaten isolated ecosystems that are not yet well understood. That threat was underscored by European scientists who presented findings this week on the sidelines of a meeting in Kingston, Jamaica of the International Seabed Authority, which is trying to finalize future rules for seabed mining. "If we remove nodules from the seabed, we do not know what we lose, only that it's lost forever," was one of the conclusions of DEEP REST, a sea floor conservation research project. The DEEP REST study cautioned against using seabed restoration "as a management action for impacted habitats." "So far, all the restoration operations we have attempted within our DEEP REST project have been short-term. And what we observed, is that in the given time, that is to say a few years, the ecosystems do not recover," said Jozee Sarrazin, a researcher at the French Institute for Ocean Science, or Ifremer. "If restoration is possible, it will take a very long time, and at the moment we don't have the data to be able to say if that will be 100 years or 1000 years," the DEEP REST coordinator told AFP. Despite the pressure, the cold, the total darkness, and the lack of nutrition sources at the bottom of the ocean, it is teeming with life. The number of species who live on the deep seabed is not yet known but estimated to be in the millions. Soft corals, sea anemone Broad swathes of the Pacific Ocean where polymetallic nodules are found shelter fauna such as sponges, soft corals or sea anemones. The fauna "only exists in these areas because they need the hard substrate of the nodule to attach," said Matthias Haeckel of the German research center GEOMAR, which presented results of the MiningImpact project in Kingston this week. Vacuuming up these nodules and spreading sediment over the impacted areas reduces population densities, biodiversity and the functioning of ecosystems, MiningImpact's study found. "To make the story short, in the end, we're talking about recovery times of thousands of years," Haeckel said. The nodules themselves form over millions of years. Some research on restoration efforts is underway but the results are not yet in. "We designed artificial nodules made of deep-sea clay and we placed them at different sites" at depths of about 4,500 meters (14,700 feet), Sabine Gollner, a biologist at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, told AFP. "But when you take into account the slow growth rates in the deep sea, the slow processes, it will take quite some more years to find out if restoration is effective and to what degree," she said. Massive deposits of sulfide -- a type of mineral deposit found in underwater vents that spit out seawater heated by magma -- should be off-limits, the researchers suggest. These types of underwater geysers are teeming with astonishing and unique biodiversity. "If we extract massive sulfides near active vents, we know what we lose, and we must prevent loss," the DEEP REST study says. But according to Gollner, it would be good to incorporate restoration goals into the mining code being negotiated by the International Seabed Authority's member states. "It's good to include it but with a clear statement that at this moment in time, it cannot be taken into account to reach agreed environmental goals," she said. "For example, a contractor shouldn't be allowed to use that argument to mine a larger area." © 2025 AFP
Japan Times
5 days ago
- Climate
- Japan Times
Rainy season ends in the Kanto region, a day earlier than average
The rainy season appears to have ended in the Kanto-Koshin region, Hokuriku region and southern Tohoku region, the Meteorological Agency announced Friday. This leaves the northern Tohoku region as the only area in Japan where the rainy season has not ended. Compared to an average year, the rainy season ended a day earlier in the Kanto-Koshin region, five days earlier in Hokuriku and six days earlier in southern Tohoku. The season ended in Kanto-Koshin on the same day as last year, 13 days earlier in Hokuriku and 14 days earlier in southern Tohoku. Areas from southern Tohoku to the Kyushu region are expected to see extremely hot days next week, with the mercury likely hitting 35 degrees Celsius or more, as the high-pressure system in the Pacific Ocean is forecast to extend near Japan. The weather agency is calling on people to take measures to prevent heatstroke. Translated by The Japan Times
