Ocean Conservation & Tidalpunk

A new study finds there are 27 million metric tons of invisible plastic particles in the North Atlantic alone.

In the oceans, the most widespread type of plastic pollution may be the kind you can’t see.

A new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature estimates that the North Atlantic Ocean alone contains 27 million metric tons of nanoplastic — plastic particles 100 times smaller than the width of a human hair. That figure is 10 times higher than previous estimates of plastic pollution of all sizes across all the world’s oceans, according to the study’s authors.

Microplastics range in width between 0.001 millimeters and 5 millimeters, making them up to 5 million times bigger than nanoplastics.

Submerged in about 40 meters (44 yards) of water off Scotland’s coast, a turbine has been spinning for more than six years to harness the power of ocean tides for electricity — a durability mark that demonstrates the technology’s commercial viability.

Keeping a large, or grid-scale, turbine in place in the harsh sea environment that long is a record that helps pave the way for bigger tidal energy farms and makes it far more appealing to investors, according to the trade association Ocean Energy Europe. Tidal energy projects would be prohibitively expensive if the turbines had to be taken out of the water for maintenance every couple of years.

Tidal energy technologies are still in the early days of their commercial development, but their potential for generating clean energy is big. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, marine energy, a term researchers use to refer to power generated from tides, currents, waves or temperature changes, is the world’s largest untapped renewable energy resource.

• In September 2024, Churna Island and the sea surrounding it became Pakistan’s second designated marine protected area, home to a variety of corals and serving as a nursery for fish.
• It followed the 2017 designation of the country’s very first MPA around Astola Island, a haven for coral, birds and sea turtles to the east.
• While Pakistan’s first two MPAs are small and have yet to be fully implemented, they represent baby steps in the country’s nascent effort to protect its marine environment.
• The country still has a long way to go to protect 30% of its ocean by 2030, as mandated by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/24232325

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The study

‘Solar-powered’ sea slugs have specialized depots in their cells that store photosynthetic equipment looted from algae, a study reports. These depots provide just the right chemical environment to keep the stolen apparatus, called chloroplasts, alive and working to turn sunlight into nutrients.

“It was the wildest thing that we had seen,” says study co-author Nicholas Bellono, a biologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The authors also found that, in lean times, the slugs can raid these compartments to consume chloroplasts.

The compartment “is basically like a moving refrigerator of chloroplasts where, after a period of starvation, the slugs can switch from storage to consumption to survive”, Bellono says.

The findings were published in Cell.

• Scientists have known for decades that soaring atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions are causing changes in ocean chemistry, threatening marine life and ecosystems.
• In June 2025, a study found that ocean acidification has passed a safe threshold across large swathes of the world’s marine environment, not only near the sea surface, but also up to 200 meters (656 feet) deep. The effect is especially severe in polar regions.

The study

We have recently revised the temperature threshold. Up to 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the tipping point for coral reefs would occur when warming is between 1.5C and 2C above preindustrial levels. But in 2023, we revised that to between 1C and 1.5C. The world is already close to that upper limit and it will certainly come within the next 10 or 20 years as a result of committed climate change – which comes from cumulative emissions that have already gone into the atmosphere. So have we already gone past the tipping point for coral reefs in global terms? Perhaps.

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Climate change, overfishing and habitat loss have caused a sharp decline in fish stocks around Pemba Island, off the coast of Tanzania. To find a new income from the sea, women from Pemba are turning to sustainable seaweed farming, Mongabay’s video team reported in May.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.nz/post/24567808

• A recent study reveals that over a fifth of the world's ocean has darkened in the last two decades, reducing the surface layers of the sea that receive light, known as photic zones, and where most marine life exists.
• The darkening is attributed to factors like increased rainfall, agricultural runoff, harmful algal blooms, and climate change, with significant changes observed near the poles, the Gulf Stream, and the Baltic Sea.
• Reduced photic zones may force marine animals closer to the surface, increasing competition for resources and potentially altering the entire marine ecosystem, according to Tim Smyth of Plymouth Marine Laboratory.
• Changes in the ocean's photic zones could impact human activities such as recreation, transport, and food supply, potentially affecting the availability of prey and driving predators closer to shore.
• Researchers used data from NASA’s Ocean Color Web satellite and developed an algorithm to measure light in seawater, finding that over 9% of the ocean saw its lit zones reduced by more than 50 meters.

The photic zone, also known as the euphotic zone or sunlight zone, is the upper layer of a body of water that receives enough sunlight for photosynthesis, typically extending to about 200 meters deep. This zone is crucial for marine life, as it supports the majority of aquatic organisms, including phytoplankton, which are essential for oxygen production and the ocean's food web.

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• Independent article
• study cited

• Vietnam’s first marine protected area (MPA), Nha Trang Bay, has lost nearly 200 hectares (494 acres) of coral reef since it was established in 2002, according to a new study.
• Major drivers of the coral decline include coastal development, warming sea temperatures and devastating crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) outbreaks worsened by overfishing and nutrient pollution.
• The study calls for stronger conservation measures inside Nha Trang Bay and other MPAs, including pollution control, active reef restoration and inclusive community governance.
• Experts say Nha Trang Bay offers lessons for other MPAs in Southeast Asia facing similar threats.

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• The Liberia-flagged vessel MSC ELSA 3, carrying 640 containers, including 13 with hazardous cargo, along with almost 85 metric tons of diesel and 367 metric tons of furnace oil, sank off of Kerala, in southern India, on May 25.
• Just 10 days after the sinking of MSC ELSA 3, Sri Lanka’s northern coast recorded significant plastic pollution with the costal belt being contaminated with bags full of plastic nurdles, making the island nation brace for more pollution as strong monsoonal winds contribute to increased pollution.
• The incident has revived painful memories of 2021 when Sri Lanka experienced its worst maritime disaster, the X-Press Pearl incident, which caused massive coastal pollution on the island’s western coast and parts of the south and northwest, with the island nation still fighting for adequate compensation.
• Meanwhile, another ship, MV Wan Hai 503, carrying 2,128 metric tons of fuel and hazardous cargo, also caught fire on June 7, off the south Indian coast of Kerala, which is still ablaze and is expected to cause further pollution along Sri Lanka’s northern coast.

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• An increasingly common way to keep tabs on coral reef health is by measuring microorganisms in the local seawater.
• Microbial-based coral reef monitoring is excellent at detecting nutrient and health changes on a reef and can draw attention to environmental disturbances; microbes are particularly good at sending such signals because they react quickly to pollution.
• This type of monitoring can help provide a fuller, faster and lower-cost picture of reef health than visual surveys alone, the most common current method.
• Two marine scientists explain the “why” and the “how” of microbial-based reef monitoring in a recent paper.

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• Papua New Guinea’s prime minister, James Marape, opposes deep-sea mining in Papua New Guinea, according to comments made at the United Nations Ocean Conference and directly to Mongabay.
• Contradicting his position, however, is the governor of PNG’s New Ireland province, Walter Schnaubelt, who has vocally supported mining the Solwara 1 project and reportedly met with company and national government officials about extracting copper and gold from the seabed.
• From early on, the project has faced opposition from coastal communities living near the Solwara 1 site who are concerned about the impacts of mining on seafloor ecosystems and the fisheries on which they rely. In February 2025, they formally requested a forum to voice their grievances and hear responses from the companies involved, but have yet to receive a response, they say.
• The company originally awarded the mining license went bankrupt in 2019, and other companies have since tried to resuscitate the project, but without consulting communities or informing them of the risks associated with deep-sea mining, according to the communities. In July 2024, the companies carried out trial mining; government officials say they were unaware of the ship’s presence, but internal documents and emails suggest that key leaders were likely aware that trial mining was planned as early as 2022.

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