Tuesday, January 28, 2025
2:00–3:00 PM HST | 7:00–8:00 PM EST
Hybrid Event: 258 Moore Hall and Online

Watch the Video:

Companies and governments are increasingly interested in mining critical metals from the deep-sea floor. Metals are needed for electronics and particularly batteries for energy storage in electric cars as part of a green transition away from fossil fuels. However, the deep sea is also home to great biodiversity and habitat complexity that are often poorly studied. Society relies upon the deep ecosystems for a host of services such as fisheries and carbon sequestration. Thus, there is the potential for serious environmental risks from industrial scale deep-sea mining. On Tuesday, January 28, 2025, Dr. Jeffrey Drazen (Professor, Department of Oceanography, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa) shared his research exploring seafloor ecosystems and threats to ecosystem structure and function, particularly in the Clarion Clipperton mining zone between Hawaii and Central America. Though mining will occur on the seafloor, its activities may release clouds of sediments and metals into the deep midwater that may impact those ecosystems. He presented recent research which has now included describing environmental baselines and assessing ecosystem risks in this realm, that is also more closely tied to commercial fisheries. Since the International Seabed Authority (ISA) may ratify a regulatory framework for deep-sea mining by the end of this year, Dr. Drazen argued that it is only in the context of the scientific understanding of environmental risks that national governments and the ISA can make informed decisions about the circumstances under which deep-sea mining could occur.

Dr. Jeff Drazen is a professor in the Department of Oceanography in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa (UHM). He joined the UHM faculty in 2004. Dr. Drazen is recognized internationally for his research on food-webs and communities of the open ocean and deep sea, particularly fishes. His work and that of his students and postdocs has helped elucidate the energetic strategies of deep-sea fishes, identified important pathways in deep-sea food webs, and explored the ecology of hadal trenches, the deepest ecosystem on earth. His research has helped evaluate the environmental risks of deep-sea mining, a topic of critical interest as companies and countries look to the ocean to supply battery metals needed for the “green transition.” He has authored and coauthored over 130 scientific articles and book chapters, received over $20 million in research grants, and he has participated in more than 60 research cruises with over 1000 days at sea, often as chief scientist. More information on his lab group can be found at www.deepseafishecology.com.

This event was sponsored by the Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.