• Question: do sea mines affect the habitats of marine life?

    Asked by wheatley to Clare, Dave, Glo, Ozge, Sean on 16 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Sean Clement

      Sean Clement answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hmmm, sea mines as if the big spiky things that go BOOM! if you poke them too hard?

      Well, interestingly enough, they can become habitats for Marine life! Sea mines are made of Iron presumably and Iron surfaces provide a wonderful surface for things to live on. First, you get microscopic algae growing on the surface, followed by things like barnacles. Then you get anemones and corals (in some parts of the world) and eventually, as the benthic population (i.e the creatures that spend their entire life attached to something) grows, the fish population will too, feeding and living in the life that’s grown up around the surface. This takes a long time but it happens on boats and all other kinds of things that are sunken in relatively shallow waters.

      If they explode however, that’s a different story. And explosion, even underwater could destroy anything in it… It really depends how powerful the mine is and where it was laid. If it was laid on the seabed, then it could do a lot of damage to the surrounding area. If it was laid at the waters surface in deep water, then it wouldn’t do an awful lot of damage except to anything unfortunate enough to be swimming near it at the time…

    • Photo: Dave Sproson

      Dave Sproson answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Sean’s answered that pretty well!

    • Photo: Clare Woulds

      Clare Woulds answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      If we take mines to mean extraction of minerals then there is a real negative effect. There are various marine environments, including quite newly discovered hydrothermal vents, which may soon be mined for metals. This would involve completely destroying the ecosystems before we have even really had a good chance to study them. They may never recover form this.

    • Photo: Gloeta Massie

      Gloeta Massie answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I like Sean’s Kaboom! answer! In terms of mineral mining, Clare is right – there’s a lot of concern that undersea mining will destroy environments that have been barely studied. However, there is little doubt that more and more marine mining will be conducted in the future. Just like with mines on land, the mines will need lots of high quality scientists to help them manage and best protect the environment. There’s a whole area of science called ‘reclamation ecology’ that looks at problems like this. If you’re interested – it’s a terrific time to want to go into the field!

    • Photo: Ozge Ozkaya

      Ozge Ozkaya answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I think the others have covered it nicely but the short answer is : yes badly!

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