Exploring the growth of deep-sea bivalves in areas of potential sea-floor mining

探索潜在海底采矿区域的深海双壳类动物的生长

• 批准号: 2889460
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Leeds
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2889460
• 关键词: Exploring; growth; deep; sea; bivalves

The area of seabed beyond the continental shelves makes up one of the largest of the Earth's ecosystems. However, the deep-sea benthos is very poorly understood, in large part because the relative inaccessibility of the environment. What is known is that deep-sea communities are diverse, heterogeneous in their composition and contain both generalist and specialist organisms, such as those living in particularly challenging locations, like hydrothermal vents. The life histories of most deep-sea animals are enigmatic. For example, knowledge of growth rates for most species is lacking, as is the extent to which these rates might be influenced by distant external factors, such as photic zone productivity and tidal effects. These life history questions are not esoteric because the deep-sea environment is being increasingly impacted by human activities, both indirectly through changes in the climate system, and directly through current and planned exploitation of marine resources. Seafloor polymetallic nodules and hydrothermal vent deposits are a potential future metals resource, of manganese, nickel and cobalt for polymetallic nodules, and copper, lead, zinc, silver, gold and other trace metals for vent deposits. These potential resources exist largely outside of country exclusive economic zones (EEZs), and in deep water (thousands of metres), so there are major issues that need to be solved before they can be exploited, some purely logistical (e.g., development of novel mining machinery), and some policy related. Outside of EEZs all seafloor resources are licenced by the International Seabed Authority, and this first requires adequate investigation of the ecological impacts of mining before this can go ahead. Currently this type of work is being undertaken by various contractors in a number of areas (e.g., the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the central Pacific) licenced to a number of different countries.Commercial extraction of these seafloor metal resources will impact the deep-sea environment, and questions about the duration of post-mining ecological recovery or the extent of potential set-aside areas are hampered by a general lack of data about deep-sea animals. The project will provide essential new information about the growth of bivalves from a variety of deep-sea environmental settings, principally hydrothermal vents and polymetallic nodule fields, which are targeted for imminent commercial exploitation. Material will come from existing collections, but there is the potential to join a research cruise to collect new specimens from the Clarion-Clipperton Zone nodule fields. Established sclerochronological imaging and geochemical techniques will be used on larger bivalve specimens, however, the small, fragile shells of many deep-sea bivalves will necessitate the modification of some existing methodologies, with the potential to develop new approaches, as appropriate. Mathematical processing (e.g. spectral analysis) of analytical results will be an essential component of the research.

大陆架以外的海底区域构成了地球上最大的生态系统之一。然而，人们对深海底栖动物知之甚少，很大程度上是因为环境相对难以接近。众所周知，深海群落的组成是多样的、异质的，并且包含通用生物和专业生物，例如生活在热液喷口等特别具有挑战性的地点的生物。大多数深海动物的生活史都是神秘的。例如，缺乏对大多数物种生长速度的了解，以及这些生长速度可能受到遥远外部因素（例如透光区生产力和潮汐效应）影响的程度。这些生命史问题并不深奥，因为深海环境正越来越多地受到人类活动的影响，这些影响既是通过气候系统的变化间接产生的，又是通过当前和计划中的海洋资源开发直接产生的。海底多金属结核和热液喷口矿床是未来潜在的金属资源，多金属结核有锰、镍、钴，喷口矿床有铜、铅、锌、银、金等微量金属。这些潜在资源主要存在于国家专属经济区（EEZ）之外，并且位于深水区（数千米），因此在开发之前需要解决一些重大问题，其中一些纯粹是后勤问题（例如，开发新颖的资源）矿山机械），以及一些政策相关。在专属经济区之外，所有海底资源均获得国际海底管理局的许可，这首先需要对采矿的生态影响进行充分调查，然后才能继续进行。目前，此类工作正在由多个地区（例如太平洋中部的克拉里昂-克利珀顿区）的多个承包商进行，并已获得许多不同国家的许可。这些海底金属资源的商业开采将影响深海由于普遍缺乏有关深海动物的数据，有关采矿后生态恢复持续时间或潜在预留区域范围的问题受到阻碍。该项目将提供有关各种深海环境环境中双壳类生长的重要新信息，主要是热液喷口和多金属结核田，这些环境的目标是即将进行商业开采。材料将来自现有的收藏，但有可能参加研究巡航，从克拉里昂-克利珀顿区结核区收集新标本。已建立的硬化年代学成像和地球化学技术将用于较大的双壳类标本，然而，许多深海双壳类的小而脆弱的壳将需要修改一些现有方法，并有可能酌情开发新方法。分析结果的数学处理（例如光谱分析）将是研究的重要组成部分。