Other
Exploring and protecting the Antarctic
- Dr. Susan Lockhart and co-pilot John Hosevar conducted the first human submersion in an Antarctic submarine, descending 600 meters beneath the ice-covered Weddell Sea in the Dual Deep Worker 2000.
- The expedition targeted the Weddell Sea, a 1+ million square mile wilderness currently threatened by climate change and industrial overfishing, where 14 nations are actively operating.
- Observations contradicted prior scientific assumptions that the deep seabed was too cold and dark to support life, revealing spectacular, fragile ecosystems including sea spiders (up to dinner-plate size), baby basket stars, and visual stars.
- Researchers noted that Antarctic sponges and corals serve as the backbone of these communities but possess extremely low resilience to physical disturbance from trawling gear.
- Recovery time for these deep-sea communities is estimated to range from 10 to hundreds of years following disturbances caused by fishing operations.
- Dr. Lockhart, who has already identified 75% of the vulnerable marine ecosystems on the Antarctic ocean floor, aims to present this data to the Antarctic Commission to advocate for Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
- Currently, only 3.7% of the world's ocean is protected, whereas the goal is to establish the Weddell Sea as the world's largest no-fishing zone.
- Authorization of new Antarctic MPAs requires unanimous consensus from all 24 member states and the European Union, a process that historically took 10 years for previous proposals.
- The Antarctic Commission is scheduled to vote on these conservation proposals in July 2018, with the outcome dependent on the strength of evidence presented by Dr. Lockhart's six-month data analysis period.