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MIDAS News
On 15 April, the UK research vessel RRS James Cook set sail from Manzanillo in Mexico, bound for the deep sea of the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the Pacific Ocean. Over the next 6 weeks, the scientific team on board will explore an area of the seafloor that is set aside by the International Seabed Authority as an Area of Particular Environment Interest (APEI) - an area that is protected from deep-sea mining of polymetallic nodules.
From 11 March until 30 April 2015, MIDAS scientists will be onboard RV Sonne (right) to investigate biological communities living on the nodule fields across the Clarion Clipperton Fracture Zone in the central Pacific.
Two new scientific publications drawing on research conducted in MIDAS have been recently published.
As spring approaches, MIDAS scientists are gearing themselves up for the busiest expedition period of the project. This spring, a series of extensive field campaigns involving dozens of scientists from around Europe will target the manganese nodule fields and associated study areas of the Clarion Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean.
A recent expedition aboard the new German research vessel RV Sonne (right) has revealed the presence of significant manganese nodules deep in the Atlantic Ocean. The cruise, led by scientists at GEOMAR, was exploring the biological communities and tectonic regime of the Vema Fracture Zone in the tropical Atlantic. During a routine biological sampling exercise using an epibethic sled, a large haul of mangnaese nodules was brought to the surface.
An image from the MIDAS hydrodynamic modelling work carried out at SAMS has been selected to appear in a 2015 calendar. The image (below), titled "Enhanced mixing of neutral buoyant plume in dynamic environments of tidally induced internal waves bouncing between steep side walls of deep narrow rift valley" was submitted by Dimitry Aleynik to an annual calendar competition run by ARCHER - the UK National Supercomputing Service - and was selected to appear on the September 2015 page.
As part of the MIDAS commitment to ensuring that policy-makers and stakeholders have access to the best available scientific, technical and socio-economic knowledge regarding seabed mining, the first MIDAS Science-Policy Panel meeting took place at the European Parliament in Brusssels on 28 November.
On 20-24 October 2014, over 70 scientists gathered to share the results of the first 12 months' work in the MIDAS project. Braving the tail-end of Hurricane Gonzalo to convene on San Miguel island in the Azores, the group spent 5 days presenting their work from the first year of the project, analysing data, debating results and planning the work for the next 12 month period.
The Kingdom of Tonga this month became the first country in the world to put in place a law that manages seabed mineral activities within its national marine space and under its sponsorship in international waters. Tonga’s Seabed Minerals Act 2014 was prepared with the assistance of the Deep Sea Minerals Project a partnership between the European Union (EU) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and 15 Pacific Island countries.
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