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☆ Oldest fossils of remarkable marine reptiles found in Arctic
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Fossils dating to about 250 million years ago unearthed in a harsh and remote locale - Norway's Arctic island of Spitsbergen - are now providing surprising insight into the rise of ichthyosaurs. The fossils showed this one, which has not yet been given a scientific name, was quite advanced anatomically. The site where the fossils were found is a classic Arctic landscape with high snow-capped mountains along the coast of a deep fjord. The mass extinction shook up land and marine ecosystems and opened opportunities for new species to fill ecological roles vacated by extinct creatures. Fossils show ichthyosaurs giving live birth to their young.

A team of scientists with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have conducted the first assessment of marine heatwaves along North America's continental shelves. Surface heatwaves can be picked up by satellites and can result in huge algal blooms. It found that while sometimes a marine heatwave can hit both the sea surface and ocean bottom at the same time, bottom heatwaves can also occur on their own. Marine heatwaves have become about 50% more frequent over the past decade. Past bottom marine heatwaves have decimated Pacific cod and snow crab populations.

☆ A 5,000-mile blanket of seaweed that can be seen from space is threatens the beaches of Florida
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Isobel Van Hagen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

This year's seaweed bloom of 'Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt' is one of the largest on record. It is the largest seaweed bloom in the world — weighing approximately 20 million tons — and is visible from outer space. "It's incredible," Brian LaPointe, a research professor at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, told NBC News. Workers who were hired by residents remove sargassum seaweed from the Bay of Soliman, north of Tulum, Quintana Roo state, Mexico, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022. "I think I've replaced my climate change anxiety with sargassum anxiety," Patricia Estridge, CEO of Seaweed Generation, told The Guardian.

☆ Plastic entering oceans could nearly triple by 2040 if left unchecked -research
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Antonio BronicSINGAPORE, March 8 (Reuters) - Plastics entering the world's oceans have surged by an "unprecedented" amount since 2005 and could nearly triple by 2040 if no further action is taken, according to research published on Wednesday. Marine plastic pollution could rise 2.6 fold by 2040 if legally binding global policies are not introduced, it predicted. "We need a strong legally binding U.N. global treaty on plastic pollution that stops the problem at the source," he added. Experts said the study showed that the level of marine plastic pollution in the oceans has been underestimated. Environmental group Greenpeace said that without a strong global treaty, plastic production could double within the next 10 to 15 years, and triple by 2050.

☆ These 14 ocean species have already gone extinct. A dozen others will probably disappear in our lifetime.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Aylin Woodward | Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

14 ocean animals have gone extinct in the last 100 years, and 72 are on the verge of extinction. An international deal was reached Saturday to protect marine wildlife, after decades of talk. At least 41% of marine species are at risk of climate change, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said in 2022. An international treaty was agreed on Saturday, after decades of negotiation. Here are the 14 extinct ocean animals (that we know of), and dozen others that are on the verge of extinction.

☆ Dozens of sanctioned superyachts seized from Russian oligarchs still hang in limbo, racking up millions in maintenance
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Grace Kay | Sam Tabahriti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Seized yachts owned by sanctioned Russian oligarchs hang in limbo as US and European authorities decide next steps. Annual maintenance for some of the yachts costs as much as $115.6 million. Earlier this week, CNBC reported that billions of dollars in oligarch's assets — from yachts and villas to private jets — are still frozen. And while the Russian oligarchs are still technically responsible for paying for yacht maintenance, they're unlikely to fork over the maintenance cost or authorities will encounter difficulty collecting the funds due to sanctions on financial transactions with the billionaires. According to Maltby, the maintenance cost of a yacht usually totals about 15% to 20% of its overall value.

☆ Insurers count the cost of ships snagged in Ukraine crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Jonathan Saul | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Curtailed shipments from major grain exporter Ukraine played a role in the resulting global food crisis. According to shipping and insurance industry assessments, there are still between 40 and 60 ships stranded, and ship owners can claim a total loss for vessels stuck for a year from their insurers. A senior industry source said exposure for the ships currently stuck was estimated at $500 million. "The liabilities for those people who have ships stuck there, to get those ships out - it’s a real headache." "There is going to be some form of constructive agreement I suspect, but then that owner will have to buy war risk insurance all over again."

☆ Gondolas left stranded as Venice's canals run dry
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Claudio Lavanga | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Gondolas are pictured in the Grand Canal during a severe low tide in the lagoon city of Venice, Italy, March 17, 2022. "I have been a gondolier for 28 years, and I have never seen so many low tides at once," he added. "Low water levels in Venice are unheard of, especially at this time of the year," said Giovanni Cecconi, the president of the Venice Resilience Lab. "During low tides we could use the barriers to stop the water from getting out of the lagoon," he said. However, Claudio Scarpa, the director general of the Venetian Hoteliers Association, said the low tides did bring some benefits.

☆ Countries gather to thrash out U.N. ocean protection treaty
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( David Stanway | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SINGAPORE, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Delegations from hundreds of countries will meet in New York this week in an attempt to hammer out a new legally binding ocean protection treaty that green groups believe will decide whether efforts to safeguard global biodiversity can succeed. Last August, an earlier round of talks on the new United Nations ocean conservation treaty were suspended, with countries unable to reach an agreement on financing. Sharing the proceeds of "marine genetic resources" and the establishment of ocean environmental impact assessment rules for development were also major sticking points. "There seems to be an appetite to actually finalise the treaty now," said Jessica Battle, ocean expert at the Worldwide Fund for Nature. "Genetic resources and the issue of finance will be the end game," said Greenpeace's Li.

☆ A burned-out tech worker quit her job at a gaming company to spend time filming ocean critters. It helped her reset.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-19 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Daina Buchner quit her tech job at a gaming company last year over burnout concerns. Daina Buchner touching a whale. Courtesy of Daina Buchner. Courtesy of Daina Buchner. Courtesy of Daina Buchner.

☆ Norway discovers trove of metals, minerals and rare earths on its seabed
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Reuters Laura Paddison | Laura Paddison | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

A Norwegian study has found a “substantial” amount of metals and minerals ranging from copper to rare earths on the seabed of its extended continental shelf, authorities said on Friday in their first official estimates. “Of the metals found on the seabed in the study area, magnesium, niobium, cobalt and rare earth minerals are found on the European Commission’s list of critical minerals,” the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), which conducted the study, said in a statement. About 24 million tonnes of magnesium and 3.1 million tonnes of cobalt are estimated to be in manganese crusts grown on bedrock over millions of years, as well as 1.7 million tonnes of cerium, a rare earth element used in alloys. The manganese crusts are also estimated to contain other rare earth metals, such as neodymium, yttrium and dysprosium. “Costly, rare minerals such as neodymium and dysprosium are extremely important for magnets in wind turbines and the engines in electric vehicles,” the NPD said.

☆ Norway finds 'substantial' mineral resources on its seabed
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( Nerijus Adomaitis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The resources estimate, covering remote areas in the Norwegian Sea and Greenland Sea, showed there were 38 million tonnes of copper, almost twice the volume mined globally each year, and 45 million tonnes of zinc accumulated in polymetallic sulphides. About 24 million tonnes of magnesium and 3.1 million tonnes of cobalt are estimated to be in manganese crusts grown on bedrock over millions of years, as well as 1.7 million tonnes of cerium, a rare earth metal used in alloys. The manganese crusts are also estimated to contain other rare earth metals, such as neodymium, yttrium and dysprosium. "Costly, rare minerals such as neodymium and dysprosium are extremely important for magnets in wind turbines and the engines in electric vehicles", the NPD said. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTEnvironmental groups have called on Norway to postpone its seabed mineral exploration until more studies are conducted to understand the organisms living on the seabed and the impact of mining on them.

☆ Marines fooled a DARPA robot by hiding in a cardboard box while giggling and pretending to be trees
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-21 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Former Pentagon policy analyst Paul Scharre discusses global power and AI in his upcoming book. He writes that Marines trained the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's robots. The robots, trained to identify humans, were fooled by Marines doing somersaults and hiding in boxes. In the passages, Scharre details how, at the end of their training course, the Marines devised a game to test the DARPA robot's intelligence. Another took branches from a fir tree and walked along, grinning from ear to ear while pretending to be a tree, according to sources from Scharre's book.

☆ UK's Crown Estate to lease seabed sites for six offshore wind projects
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Britain's Crown Estate will lease sites for six offshore wind projects capable of generating enough green electricity to power more than seven million homes by 2030 under agreements announced on Thursday. The Crown Estate, which oversees the British monarch's public holdings, manages the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland and awards seabed rights for the development of offshore wind, wave and tidal energy. Germany's RWE (RWEG.DE) said it was one of the companies that had signed a lease agreement with the Crown Estate. Gus Jaspert, managing director in charge of marine at the Crown Estate, said the deal "marks a significant milestone for the UK on the road to net zero". The offshore wind market has grown to become the largest source of renewable electricity in the UK, the Crown Estate said, currently able to power approximately 40% of UK homes.

Jan 17 (Reuters) - Montfort has emerged as the top bidder for Uniper Energy's oil refinery in the UAE that produces low-sulphur fuel oil for the shipping industry, multiple sources familiar with the matter said this week. The companies are finalising the deal, some of the sources said, although one source said the deal has been closed. Other companies that were also in the running were Vitol and BB Energy, the sources said. The Fujairah plant processes mainly African sweet, or low-sulphur, crude oil, producing about 5 million tonnes per year of very low-sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO), according to Uniper and Refinitiv data. Montfort has a bunker supplier licence in Fujairah under the entity of Montfort Trading FZE.

☆ Singapore 2022 bunker fuel sales dip 4.3% y/y to 47.9 mln tonnes
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Jeslyn Lerh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SINGAPORE, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Sales of marine fuel in Singapore, including sales of liquefied natural gas and biofuels, fell 4.3% year-on-year to 47.9 million tonnes in 2022, official data showed on Friday. Bunkering sales of low-sulphur fuel oils (LSFO) were down 8.3% from the previous year to 30.1 million tonnes in 2022, Reuters calculations based on data from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) showed. Total high-sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) sales for bunkering were up 6.2% from the previous year to 13.7 million tonnes in 2022, while sales of marine gasoils (MGO) dipped 6.2% to 3.8 million tonnes in 2022. Bunker sales of biofuel blends reached 140,000 tonnes with more than 90 biofuel bunkering operations completed in Singapore, surpassing bunker sales of liquefied natural gas (LNG) which totalled 16,000 tonnes, the MPA said. A total of 577.7 million tonnes of cargo was handled in 2022, with vessel arrival tonnage hitting 2.83 billion gross tonnage (GT).

☆ New threats will corrode infrastructure M&A
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Lisa Jucca | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Private equity infrastructure funds attracted $121 billion globally in 2021, nearly 60% more than in 2017, according to data from PitchBook. The rising cost of insuring against cyberattacks will also dull the appeal of telecoms networks and power grids. The urge to make the world a cleaner place means building and upgrading power infrastructure in both developed and developing countries. Pressure to establish energy security at home also means governments will want to own key infrastructure assets, regardless of the financial incentives. If private investors conclude some infrastructure assets have lost their appeal, states will step in.

☆ For 60 years, the US Navy has been training dolphins and sea lions to keep rivals away from its most sensitive hardware
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Gidget Fuentes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +16 min

The US Navy has been training dolphins and sea lions to detect undersea threats since the 1960s. A US Navy trainer with a Mark 5 Marine Mammal sea lion in Key West in October 1990. The program worked with sharks, rays, and sea turtles but settled on dolphins and sea lions. US NavyThe Navy Marine Mammal Program's budget for 2023 provides $40 million for "food, medicine, veterinary care, husbandry, and facilities," Wilson said. A US Navy sea lion jumps into a riverine command boat during a mine-countermeasures exercise in Bahrain in November 2014.

☆ WTO chief rebukes countries over stalled fishing negotiations
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Emma Farge | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

GENEVA, Dec 20 (Reuters) - The head of the World Trade Organization chided countries for failing to make headway on negotiations covering fishing and agriculture because of infighting over who should lead them. Delegates told Reuters that a proposal was floated for Turkey and Norway's ambassadors to lead the agricultural and fisheries negotiations but these choices were rejected by India, delegates said. "Six months of not negotiating is not acceptable," WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told countries in a closed-door meeting of its General Council, according to remarks relayed by the body's spokesperson late on Monday. "While WTO members are not doing the job, fish stocks continue to decline at an alarming rate," said Remi Parmentier, director of the Varda Group, a think-tank focused on biodiversity. WTO spokesperson Dan Pruzin told journalists it was "never easy" to choose chairs of negotiations but said this case was proving "particularly difficult", without elaborating.

☆ WTO chief rebukes countries over stalled negotiations
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Emma Farge | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

GENEVA, Dec 19 (Reuters) - The head of the World Trade Organization on Monday chided countries for failing to make headway on negotiations because of infighting over who should lead them. The WTO broke a multi-year deal-making drought in June by clinching a series of agreements at a major trade conference in Geneva in June, including a fisheries deal. "Six months of not negotiating is not acceptable," WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told countries in a closed-door meeting of its General Council on Monday, according to remarks relayed by the body's spokesperson. Delegates told Reuters that a proposal was floated for Turkey and Norway's ambassadors to lead the agricultural and fisheries negotiations but these choices were rejected by India and Pakistan. WTO spokesperson Dan Pruzin told journalists it was "never easy" to choose chairs of negotiations but said this case was proving "particularly difficult", without elaborating.

☆ Historic biodiversity agreement reached at U.N. conference
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

Negotiators reached a historic deal at a United Nations biodiversity conference early Monday that would represent the most significant effort to protect the world’s lands and oceans and provide critical financing to save biodiversity in the developing world. The global framework comes a day before the U.N. Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, is set to end in Montreal. China, which holds the presidency at this conference, released a new draft earlier in the day that gave the sometimes contentious talks much-needed momentum. The most significant part of the agreement is a commitment to protect 30% of land and water considered important for biodiversity by 2030. “The new text is a mixed bag,” Andrew Deutz, director of global policy, institutions and conservation finance for The Nature Conservancy, said.

☆ Historic biodiversity agreement reached at UN conference
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Hannah Ward-Glenton | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Negotiators reached a historic deal to protect the world's lands and oceans at a United Nations biodiversity conference Monday. The agreement includes a commitment to protect 30% of land and water considered important for biodiversity by 2030, and has been coined "30 by 30." The deal was reached on the final day of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, also known as COP15, in Montreal, Canada. We have an agreement to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, to work on restoration, to reduce the use of pesticides," Guilbeault said. 'A floor, not a ceiling'While many see the agreement as progress, some argue "30 by 30" isn't enough in itself to tackle the global biodiversity crisis.

☆ Right-winger Ciotti wins French conservative party leadership
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

PARIS, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Right-winger Eric Ciotti was elected as the next leader of France's formerly heavyweight conservative Les Republicains (LR) party after winning the second round ballot of party members on Sunday. Ciotti, who is on record as saying he wants to stop what he calls a "migratory invasion" of France, won 53.7% of the votes against Bruno Retailleau, a senator who scored 46.3%, LR acting chairwoman Annie Genevard said. Ciotti, whose home base is the Nice region, is politically further to the right than outgoing LR leader Christian Jacob. His program proposes to "rehabilitate the value of work, fight against violence and disorder in the streets, stop the migratory invasion and the rise of Islamism". Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide Editing by Ros RussellOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ A lost ecosystem revealed in Greenland by oldest environmental DNA
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

A long time agoAn artist's illustration reconstructs Greenland's unique ecosystem as it existed 2 million years ago. Beth ZaikenScientists in Denmark have found the world’s oldest DNA sequences in sediment from the ice age. The core, taken from northern Greenland, revealed that the polar region was once abundant with plant and animal life 2 million years ago. Mastodons, reindeer, geese, lemmings and hares lived in an ecosystem that was a mix of temperate and Arctic flora and fauna. The fossil includes the head, neck and body together — a rare discovery for the marine reptiles, which didn’t preserve well in one piece.

☆ Abalone and Dugongs threatened with extinction, warns IUCN Red List
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —The effects of human activity from climate change to pollution are “devastating” marine life, with nearly a tenth of underwater plants and animals assessed so far threatened with extinction, the latest Red List of Threatened Species showed on Friday. “It shows that we are having quite a devastating impact on marine species,” Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN Red List, said. Linda Lombardi/AP/FILEHilton-Taylor said the portion of marine species facing extinction was likely much higher than current data shows because those analyzed so far have tended to be widespread fish species, not currently under threat. The latest list reviews abalone species, a type of mollusc sold as a luxury seafood item, for the first time and found that around 44% of them face extinction. “The awful status of these species should shock us and engage us for urgent action,” said Amanda Vincent, chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Marine Conservation Committee.

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