Op/Ed: An Antarctic Marine Protected Area is Long Overdue
Antarctica, the world’s last true wilderness, has been protected by an international treaty for the last 60 years. But the same isn’t true for most of the ocean surrounding it.Just 5% of the Southern Ocean is protected, leaving biodiversity hotspots exposed to threats from human activity.The Western Antarctic Peninsula, the northernmost part of the continent and one of its most biodiverse regions, is particularly vulnerable. It faces the cumulative threats of commercial krill fishing…
Quark Orders Polar Expedition Ship from Brodosplit
Quark Expeditions has signed an agreement with Croatian shipbuilder Brodosplit to build a new expedition ship designed for operation in the polar regions.The 13,000+ gross metric ton, 200-passenger ship was designed by LMG Marin in cooperation with Quark Expeditions and is scheduled to be launched in 2020.“This ship will be more than just a ship – it will be an unrivalled operational base for polar expeditions,” said Andrew White, Quark Expeditions President.The ship will carry 20 zodiacs that will be rapidly deployable from an internal zodiac hangar with four embarkation points.
Loss of Diversity Near Melting Coastal Glaciers
Melting glaciers are causing a loss of species diversity among benthos in the coastal waters off the Antarctic Peninsula, impacting an entire seafloor ecosystem. This has been verified in the course of repeated research dives, the results of which were recently published by experts from Argentina, Germany and Great Britain and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in a study in the journal Science Advances. The scientists believe increased levels of suspended sediment in the water to be the cause of the dwindling biodiversity in the coastal region. This occurs when the effects of global warming lead glaciers near the coast to begin melting, as a result of which large quantities of sediment are carried into the seawater.
Polarstern Embarks for Cape Town on Training Cruise
On 29 October 2015 the research icebreaker Polarstern will leave its homeport in Bremerhaven for Cape Town, South Africa, where it is expected to arrive on 1 December. It will take 32 students hailing from 19 countries on board, who will be introduced to the latest methods and instruments used in oceanography. Nine instructors from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), the FU Berlin and Ireland’s Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology will teach the participants in the “floating summer school”. 470 applications from around the globe were submitted for the 32 places on the North South Atlantic Transect Training Programme (NoSoAT).
TEN Buys 9 Tankers for $530M
TEN, the New York quoted Greek tanker company controlled by the Tsakos family, confirmed it has bought for nine ice class 1A tankers from Western Petroleum for $530 million. The fleet consists of six 53,000-dwt medium range chemical/products carriers delivered by Hyundai Mipo Dockyard last year and three 116,000-dwt coated aframax products carriers for delivery from Hyundai Heavy Industries in May August and October this year. The acquisitions would be financed with a mixture of corporate cash and bank debt. The handymax tankers which all fly the Bahamas flag are the Western Baltic, Western Pacific, Western Atlantic, Western Antarctic, Western Arctic and Western Icelandic. The six vessels are due for delivery to TEN in April.
