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是地球上最大的生态系统之一。然而，人们对深海底栖生物知之甚少，这在很大程度上是因为环境相对难以进入。已知的情况是，深海生物群落的组成多种多样，既有通才生物，也有专门生物，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，对大多数物种的生长率缺乏了解，对这些生长率可能在多大程度上受到远距离外部因素的影响也缺乏了解，如透光层生产力和潮汐效应。这些生命史问题并不深奥，因为深海环境正日益受到人类活动的影响，既有通过气候系统变化间接产生的影响，也有通过目前和计划中的海洋资源开发直接产生的影响。海底多金属结核和热液喷口矿床是一种潜在的未来金属资源，多金属结核有锰、镍和钴，喷口矿床有铜、铅、锌、银、金和其他微量金属。这些潜在的资源主要存在于国家专属经济区（EEZ）之外，并在深水（数千米）中，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，新型矿山机械的发展），以及一些相关政策。在专属经济区以外，所有海底资源都由国际海底管理局颁发许可证，这首先需要对采矿的生态影响进行充分调查，然后才能进行。目前，这类工作由许多领域的承包商承担（例如，对这些海底金属资源的商业开采将影响深海环境，而且由于普遍缺乏有关深海动物的数据，有关开采后生态恢复的持续时间或潜在保留区的范围的问题受到阻碍。该项目将提供关于双壳类在各种深海环境中生长的重要新信息，主要是即将进行商业开发的热液喷口和多金属结核区。材料将来自现有的收藏品，但有可能参加一次研究航行，从克拉里昂-克利珀顿区结核区收集新的标本。现有的硬年代成像和地球化学技术将用于较大的双壳类标本，但是，许多深海双壳类的壳小而脆弱，因此需要修改一些现有方法，并有可能酌情开发新的方法。分析结果的数学处理（如光谱分析）将是研究的一个重要组成部分。