Author: Peter Etnoyer

Hydrothermal vents have given us many things, including new autotrophic paradigms, new species, a new appreciation for seafloor spreading centers, and a best-ever IMAX movie . But the fact that seafloor massive sulfides can precipitate a king’s ransom in gold, silver, copper, and zinc was an unexpected boost to the cauldron-like charisma of hydrothermal vent systems. Big-time scientific weeklies Science and Nature finally caught up to DSN’s meticulous coverage of vent mining just this week, reporting on the new gold rush to the deep seafloor.

Triton Logging Inc’s founder claims 45,000 untapped submerged forests exist in the world, and he’s developing a fleet of remote controlled submersible chainsaws to harvest them.

Apparently the pelagic pollution phenomenon is beyond clogging the stomachs of the marine megavertebrates, and it’s making people fat, too. Think about that the next time the cashier double-bags your one gallon jug of milk. For the sake of the ocean, say “paper please”.