Tragedy of Abyssal Commodity: Deep Sea Mining and Corals

Deep-Sea floor was once a receptacle for military waste in the sixties, as revealed in the MIZAR cruises in the DWD Dumpsite off New Jersey where this author photographed with US Navy’s FISH (Fully Instrumented Sonar Housing) vast patches of dead sea urchin Echinus affinis on sea floor where a ‘Liberty ship’ was sunk with nerve gas cylinders in caskets. After the 1972 “London Convention” for “prevention of marine pollution of dumping wastes and other material”, deep-sea dumping was made illegal (Hollis, 2012) although marine debris is still an ongoing problem on ocean floor at abyssal depths. CONTENTS Chapter 1.Abuse of the Abyss: Anthropogenic Threats To Deep-Sea Ecosystem Integrity and Biodiversity with focus on Ocean Acidification and Co9balt Mining. Chapter 2. Executive Summary: Third International Deep-Sea Coral Symposium in Miami.