cooperation in the Black Sea

'Blue growth' in Black Sea?

ARTICLE | OCTOBER 15, 2011 - 12:00PM | BY MARINA LYNCH

Damanaki: Wants to 'overcome fragmentation and create linkages between different sectors'

A brainstorming event to discuss ideas about the future of cooperation in the Black Sea was hosted on 14 October by Maritime Affairs Commissioner Maria Damanaki.

Damanaki recognised that while each country has ideas of what it wants to achieve in the Black Sea, the real challenge is to work together towards a common vision for the entire sea basin. All countries and actors must be involved and integrated for growth to progress in a fair and sustainable way.

The assets of the Black Sea include it being a tourist destination and a body through which goods, people, fish, gas and oil pass through from Russia to the Caspian Sea. Additionally, fish, natural minerals, and alternative energy sources all come from the Black Sea.

The two main topics Damanaki discussed are fisheries and maritime affairs. The stock of fisheries in the Black Sea is being monitored by the European Commission, Romania and Bulgaria, but all Black Sea states must be involved and cooperate for the efficient management of sustainable stocks. A Fisheries Advisory Council has been set up and Damanaki requested opinions and advice on how to get all Black Sea countries to work together. She suggested starting with scientific and research co-operation.

The second topic is maritime affairs. There are many sectors competing for space: transport, energy, tourism, fisheries, and marine aquaculture. Additionally, attention must also be paid to good environmental practices. Cross-border dialogue is needed to be organise maritime planning and allow everyone to develop their businesses.

A 'blue growth' proposal from the Commission aims at “overcoming fragmentation and creating linkages between different sectors.” Focus has been placed on aquaculture, maritime tourism and non wind energy projects like current, tidal, algae and sea thermal energies. The brainstorming event was supposed to encourage new ideas relating to the 'blue growth' proposal.

Damanaki concluded by saying that political blocs could not be permitted to constrict work or maritime matters, and asked how the EU's Black Sea Synergy framework of 2007 could best work with the Black Sea Economic Co-operation of 1992. Her stated goal is to have a single maritime and fisheries fund by 2014, and she said that events such as the brainstorming session will help to integrate future policies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marina Lynch

Trainee Reporter, New Europe

Marina Lynch is currently finishing her Bachelor's degree in International Affairs & Communications at Vesalius College, Brussels. She has also worked as a writer and photographer for the 'Voices' section of The Reading Eagle, Pennsylvania, US.

The Future of Marine and Maritime Innovation in Europe,

Maria Damanaki

European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries

A strategy for the Atlantic

Lisbon Atlantic Conference

Lisbon, 28 November 2011

Mr President, Prime Minister, Ministers, Mr Mayor, ladies and gentlemen,

Let's begin with an observation: for years, the Atlantic Ocean, its regions and islands have been seen as the geographic periphery of Europe.

But the Atlantic plays a critical role in Europe's history and identity. It is of vital importance for EU trade and contains tremendous potentials for the future development of Europe.

It was time to act and to offer new perspectives for this sea basin.

The Maritime Strategy for the Atlantic region is our response.

It shows that Atlantic is by no means peripheral to Europe’s interests and decision-making. It promotes territorial cohesion and engages international partners, on all shores of the Atlantic. It promotes blue growth in the Atlantic, namely through the creation of employment and innovation in maritime sectors and coastal areas while respecting the sustainability of resources.

Nobody can ignore the economic difficulties we are in, at this moment of time. But at times as these, we need to have they spirit to seek new opportunities.

In the Atlantic coastal communities, there are maritime sectors which can lead us out of today's economic impasse: some are well-established, mature sectors, like coastal tourism or fisheries; others are emerging, like renewable energy; others still need further support, such as marine biotechnology or mineral seabed exploration

Our Blue growth proposal in the Strategy tackles the specific challenges of the Atlantic. It takes advantage of specific opportunities which are characteristic to this sea basin, such as: strong winds and powerful tides to create green energy; productive fisheries that can sustain their communities if we fish responsibly; potentially vast seafloor resources to be exploited; Opportunities for the tourism industry including nautical leisure activities; Motorways of the sea that can bring new development to ports and coastal regions. For all these sectors we come with proposals, opportunities and investment.

Ladies and gentlemen,

this is what we propose. What can we expect from the Atlantic Ocean in 2020 if our proposal is in place?

Can we make a difference in nine years time?

I believe we can.

The Atlantic's powerful winds that have challenged generations of explorers and seafarers are now on our side. The massive expansion of wind power that is already planned will transform our seas. Our next step will be to generate the marine energy from the tides and waves complementing what we get from the wind. Oceans can provide zero-emission energy. It offers real security of supply. I cannot see anybody cutting off our wind, tides or waves.

EU-wide, by 2020, ocean energy could generate over 26,000 direct and 13,000 indirect jobs; by 2050, over 300,000 and 150,000 respectively.

And by 2020 we aim to see a digital three-dimensional map of the Atlantic including accessible data on what is in the water, on the seafloor and below the seafloor. Offshore businesses have told us in Ireland that such a map can improve their competiveness. And it can offer opportunities for young energetic companies to create new products and services. Making marine data available for sea bed mapping and related uses is a task that only the EU can deliver. The economic benefit is estimated at approximately €3.6 to 5 billion over a 10-year period.

I want us to know what polymetallic sulphides have been precipitated in the mid-Atlantic ridge. Now we have tested ways of extracting them safely and sustainably. And I want us to understand the peculiar processes that allow life to exist without light and whether their DNA provides clues that can help in our quest to find new drugs against cancer. We have to create an environment friendly to biotechnology investment, through spatial planning, incentives and proper funding.

In 2020 I want to see us fishing sustainably in the Atlantic and a substantial increase in our production from fish farms. Fish provides 15% of the world's protein and in 2020 our planet's population will be approaching 8 billion. Simple arithmetic tells us that, if we don't expand production, someone will be eating less fish. And that means a less healthy diet, with all the public health issues that ensue.

By 2020 the increased value of the offshore economy will have increased our vulnerability to the anger of the sea. Will we have the ability to defend our aquaculture cages against biological threats - toxic algae or jellyfish shoals? Will ocean energy platforms or yacht marinas be able to withstand storms like those that came up from Biscay in February last year? How would Europe cope with a triple catastrophe like that which struck the people of Japan in March this year – earthquake, tsunami, severe nuclear accident? How resilient is our infrastructure? Will we have the early warning systems and rescue teams ready? It requires preparation, it requires sophisticated technology but most of all it requires collaboration between neighbours. Can we do it? Our proposals in the Atlantic Strategy are the answer.

After all, by 2020 we want to see our Atlantic ports and coastal communities alive and active. The new economy – offshore renewables, aquaculture, and mining – will offer opportunities, alongside regenerated traditional ones such as shipbuilding and fishing. The young people should no longer be leaving for jobs. Faster broadband communications will mean that Europe’s peripheral regions are no longer so peripheral.

And let's not forget that the Atlantic coastal regions and islands contains a rich and diverse culture from the still vibrant Celtic culture to the EU outermost regions, the historic ports, the mysterious ruins, the wild coastlines of the Atlantic can be enjoyed all year long.

8 millions of European citizens are practising a nautical activity in the area. There is a waiting list for moorings at many Atlantic marinas while the nautical leisure activities are increasing. We have to meet the demand for a more active, discerning and sustainable maritime tourism.

I might have given the impression that this was a strategy for the five EU countries that border the Atlantic: Spain, Portugal, France, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Of course they will be in the front line, including their outermost territories, but we do need a wider engagement.

We need to cooperate with other coastal states around the Atlantic – the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil… and within global fora.

The Atlantic is humanity's heritage. Fishing or prospecting in areas beyond national jurisdiction needs internationally-agreed rules. The circulation of the Atlantic has an impact on the climate on both shores of the ocean. Can we ensure that in 2020 we have enough observation in place to understand what is happening or to warn us of any sudden changes? I don't think we have any choice. We can and we must.

All these targets are in the heart of our Integrated Maritime Policy. Now we have taken an important step forward for this policy. After one year of intense negotiations the IMP is now provided with its own financial framework.

The Financial Regulation for the integrated Maritime Policy has just been approved by the European Parliament and the Council.

From now on we can speak about a policy that has become independent and mature. The amount is not big but it will provide a "bridge" for the implementation of actions from now until the next financial perspectives. From 2014 the opportunities will increase.

How do we match the tools with the objectives? This is not something that can only be done from Brussels. We need all of you - industrialists, academics, local and national authorities, citizens from all around the Atlantic - to help us define what concrete steps or projects will deliver the growth we need.

For this reason we will set up an Atlantic Forum. It will gather opinions, digest them and deliver an Action Plan for the beginning of 2013.

The Action Plan must have concrete ideas for turning our vision into reality.

Our final decision will be taken during a Ministerial Conference in Cyprus on October 8th, 2012. Here again, we will be seeking for your creative views.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Our Atlantic Ocean is not only the western boundaries of the European Union. It is also the bridge between all the Atlantic States.

The extraordinary Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa wrote many beautiful pages on the Atlantic Ocean. To finish my speech today, I'd like to pick up one verse of his famous poem "O infante":

"Que o mar unisse, já não separasse"- "The sea to connect, no longer divide"

Thank you.

"The Future of Marine and Maritime Innovation in Europe

Seminar "The Future of Marine and Maritime Innovation in Europe" at the European Parliament

Brussels, 7 December 2011

Honourable Members of Parliament, dear Ms Meissner, Representatives of the Member States and maritime regions, dear Members of the European marine research community,

Governments are waking up to the fact that we have just about reached the limit of what can be squeezed from the 29% of the planet that is land. Therefore, it becomes clear that we need to look even more to the sea.

The sea can provide energy that does not use up finite resources; that does not emit carbon dioxide; that does not need land; that does not need fresh water; and that does not need to be imported from unreliable suppliers.

Already wind turbines account for most of the EU's new electricity generating power. More is moving offshore.

By 2020, 30 percent of the annual market for new wind capacity will be offshore and by 2030, 60 percent. By 2020 wave and tidal power will join the wind platforms in providing energy to our cities.

To continue, the sea can help in providing our population with a healthy diet. We are still growing byone percent per year. Our aquaculture production must overcome this annual growth rate. If people don't want fish farms near their favourite beaches, then we need to build them further offshore.

And there are many more opportunities. ExxonMobil is investing more than six hundred million dollars in algal fuels. This week, the Nautilus minerals mining company upped its estimate of the gold and copper deposits in its concessions, nearly two kilometres down in the Pacific.

Researchers are looking into life forms that can survive without light or oxygen and at temperatures that can melt lead – in order to examine if we can find new medicines that can help us in fighting cancer.

Things are coming together. We have the technology to build platforms that can withstand hurricanes or tsunamis. We have the submarines to get us to the bottom of the sea. We have the sensor technology to observe what is there. We have the robotics technology to bring what is in the bottom-sea to the surface. And we have the genetics technology to analyse the organisms that we have found .

Within the Commission we are working on a "blue growth" Communication that will deliver policy recommendations able to facilitate sustainable economic growth and employment in emerging - and established - maritime sectors.

Of course we need research. At a time of deep austerity, the Commission's proposal to increase its research spending by nearly 50% is a clear declaration of intent and commitment in further fostering growth and development.

This EU funded package had been adopted by the Commission last week.

I've worked together with Ms Maire Geoghegan-Quinn the EU Commissioner for research and innovation, to reinforce the recognition of the seas and oceans in this future framework for research.

I am glad today to inform you that for the first time, the marine and maritime research is clearly indicated in all relevant documentation of the Horizon 2020 package. This will facilitate cross-cutting actions/projects in the field of maritime and marine research and innovation for future activities.

Further, the inclusion of ''Ocean energy'' has equally been ensured in the relevant sector of the package, together with wind and solar energy. This signals the need and the importance to be given to the ''ocean energy'' in the near future as an alternative source of energy.

The new '' Horizon 2020'' is therefore a good step forward. But the Commission can't obviously act alone. I would like to thank the Member States as well as Norway for their ongoing cooperation under the umbrella of the Joint Programming Initiative for "Healthy and Productive Seas and Oceans". The European marine and maritime research needs the effort of national research programmes.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to the Chairman of IBM's European operations. He informed me that IBM, which is the second-largest technology company in the world, has bet the company's future on data.

There are new jobs in data. Unfortunately, although Europe spends about one and a half billion euro of public money on marine data, it is very difficult for business, especially the small start-up enterprises, to get hold of them. And even when they do so, it costs them so much to put incompatible data from a multitude of bodies together, that they give up.

The Commission's studies indicate that making all these data available in a compatible form would save European companies at least 300 million euro a year.

Industry is planning 5.8 trillion euro investment in offshore wind turbines by 2050. They need data to work out where to place their turbines, they need data to comply with environmental impact rules and they need data to operate and maintain the relevant installations. EU is not going to tell industry how to invest in the new blue economy. However, we can make sure that we have the infrastructure to make that investment really happening. For instance we can encourage the unlocking of public data.

I am therefore proposing that the EU supports the development of a seabed map of European waters ready by 2020. This will include water depth, marine sediments and marine life as well as real-time information on parameters such as temperature, salinity and sea-level.

At the same time, we are setting up mechanisms that allow us to find out from data users – private companies, public authorities, academics – where the gaps are, where we need new measurements.

This is part of our "marine knowledge 2020" initiative, which already started with preparatory actions in 2009. We now have prototype maps covering a small number of sea-basins. Feedback from users has been encouraging.

Last week Council and Parliament adopted the first financial regulation for the Integrated Maritime Policy that will allow us to extend prototype maps to all European waters by the end of 2014.

Finally, with the financial aid of the new European Fisheries and Maritime Fund that we are proposing for 2014 onwards, we will be able by 2020 to produce a more detailed sea-bed map that can really accelerate the expansion of the marine economy and provide opportunities for business.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am confident that your seminar will be profitable for the future development of the EU marine and maritime research which is one of the most important pillar of the Integrated maritime policy.

Thank you

Greenpeace how do you travel ? by air ? how do you think ?

Removal from Greenpeace Board

Paul Watson continued as a crewmember, officer, and skipper (in 1972) aboard several Greenpeace voyages throughout the mid-1970s. He considers himself a founding member of Greenpeace and Greenpeace International, a claim Greenpeace disputes. Friends noted that his personality, his liking to "push himself front and centre", was to blame in addition to his espousing direct actions that Greenpeace did not agree with
In 1977, Watson was expelled from the Greenpeace's board of directors by a vote of 11 to 1(Watson himself cast the single vote against it). The group felt his strong, "front and center" personality and frequently voiced opposition to Greenpeace's interpretation of "nonviolence" were too divisiveWatson subsequently left the group. The group has since labeled his actions at the time as those of a "mutineer" within their ranks. That same year, he founded his own group, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
During an interview in 1978 with CBC Radio, Watson spoke out against Greenpeace (as well as other organizations) and their role and motives for the anti-sealing campaigns. Watson accused these organizations of campaigning against the Canadian seal hunt because it is an easy way to raise money and it is a profit maker for the organizations
Greenpeace has called Watson a violent extremist and will no longer comment on his activities

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant

Fukushima: TEPCO mulling release of low-level radioactive water in sea

Via The Mainichi Daily News: TEPCO mulling release of low-level radioactive water in sea. Excerpt:

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday it is considering releasing into the Pacific Ocean low-level radioactive water now stored in tanks at the premises of its crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as storage capacity may run short by next March. 

The plant operator known as TEPCO said the water would be released only after it clears the country's legal concentration limit of radioactive substances, including cesium and strontium, but a fisheries group immediately expressed strong concerns. 

The National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations filed a protest against the plan with TEPCO, saying it cannot accept such an action that could affect the fishing industry by lowering fish consumption. 

Nobutaka Tsutsui, senior vice minister for agriculture, forestry and fisheries, said at a press conference he cannot approve of the plan. 

He said he has already asked Tadahiro Matsushita, senior vice minister for economy, trade and industry which oversees the nuclear industry, to reconsider the TEPCO plan and will work on relevant parties to prevent TEPCO from implementing the plan. 

The plant has been plagued with highly radioactive water accumulating inside reactor turbine buildings as a result of the continuing injection of water to cool the stricken Nos. 1 to 3 reactors. 

The water is currently recycled as a coolant after reducing its radioactive level through a water processing facility, installed after the plant was hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. 

But as about 200 to 500 tons of groundwater a day flows into the reactor turbine buildings, the amount of water that is processed has exceeded that needed for injection into the reactors, according to TEPCO spokesman Junichi Matsumoto. 

He said the capacity of tanks installed at the plant's premises is expected to total 15.5 tons but there is a possibility the capacity would fall short possibly by early March. 

"We cannot keep on increasing the number of tanks in the next year or two. So we're considering the possibility of releasing water into the sea," Matsumoto told a press conference. 

The water processing facility reduces the amount of radioactive cesium, but does not remove radioactive strontium, which tends to accumulate in bones and is feared to cause bone cancer and leukaemia. 

TEPCO has not only accidentally released highly radioactive water into the sea after the nuclear crisis, but also intentionally dumped low level radioactive water as an emergency measure in April, drawing concerns from neighboring countries.

In a doubtless related article, we learn that the Japanese government is taking TEPCO under direct control.

Gov't to put troubled TEPCO under its control with infusion of 1 trillion yen

The TEPCO headquarters building, center. (Mainichi)

The government is set to provide Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) with an infusion of 1 trillion yen in public funds to place the utility plagued by the Fukushima nuclear crisis under its control, government sources said.

In return for the public funds, the government intends to replace a majority of the current members of its board led by Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata.

The action is in response to fears that the power supplier would otherwise fall into capital deficit, a situation in which its debts surpass its assets, in fiscal 2012 because its response to the nuclear crisis will cost it massive amounts of money.

A panel of Cabinet ministers working on the reform of TEPCO and the electric power industry as a whole, chaired by Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura, will officially propose the planned infusion of public funds early next year.

TEPCO has been strongly urging the government to grant it permission to raise its electric power bills and resume operations at nuclear power plants suspended for trouble or regular inspections.

However, the government is reluctant to do so because "it's no easy task to win public understanding because a consumption tax hike is under discussion."

From the viewpoint of ensuring a stable supply of electric power, the government intends to take the opportunity of the infusion of public funds to take the initiative in reforming TEPCO's management instead of liquidating the utility.

TEPCO is estimated to suffer about 576.3 billion yen in net losses in the current business year ending in March 2012, while its net assets will decrease more than 50 percent from the year earlier to 708.8 billion yen by the end of this business year.

Furthermore, the company will be required to recapitalize itself as its capital adequacy ratio has dropped to the 6 percent level. However, it will likely be difficult to raise funds on financial markets because the rating of its corporate bonds has significantly declined.

The government has already extended 890 billion yen in financial assistance to TEPCO via the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund to help the utility pay damages to those affected by the nuclear crisis. However, the utility is strictly prohibited from diverting any of the money to purposes other than compensation payments.

It is believed certain that the company would fall into a capital deficit in the business year ending March 2013 without recapitalization since it will shoulder the heavy financial burden of decontaminating areas tainted with radioactive substances from the crippled nuclear plant and decommissioning the crippled nuclear reactors.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., (TEPCO) Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, right, speaks during a news conference at the company's head office in Tokyo, Wednesday, March 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)

A subcommittee within the Cabinet Office's Japan Atomic Energy Commission compiled a report on Dec. 7, detailing a roadmap to decommissioning and dismantling the crippled reactors at the Fukushima plant.

A government third-party committee estimates that it will cost TEPCO approximately 1.15 trillion yen to decommission and dismantle the crippled No. 1 to 4 reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. The amount is expected to sharply increase if the plant's No. 5 and 6 reactors that remain intact are also done away with.

In spring, the government estimated that it will need to provide TEPCO with an infusion of up to 2 trillion yen in public funds. One government source says it now needs to inject at least 1 trillion yen into the utility judging from the company's financial situation.

The government will inject public funds into TEPCO by having the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund buy preferential shares to be issued by the utility.

TEPCO is allowed by its internal regulations to issue up to 1.8 billion shares, but has already issued approximately 1.6 billion shares. To provide TEPCO with an infusion of sufficient public funds, the company will be required to revise its internal rules at a shareholder meeting to issue more shares than the current upper limit.

If additional shares are issued, however, the value of shares that TEPCO shareholders currently own will likely decrease.

Preferential shares to be issued by TEPCO will likely be exchangeable for ordinary shares that allow their holders to vote in shareholder meetings. The holders of preferential shares are given priority in the allocation of remaining assets if the company is liquidated as well as in dividend payments, but their right to vote in shareholder meetings is restricted. Financially troubled companies that need to rehabilitate themselves typically issue preferential shares as a means to recapitalize themselves.

(Mainichi Japan) December 8, 2011

The Mariana Trench in the western Pacific runs for about 2,500km and extends down to 10,994m.

Oceans' deepest depth re-measured

Continue reading the main stoUS scientists have mapped the deepest part of the world's oceans in greater detail than ever before.

The Mariana Trench in the western Pacific runs for about 2,500km and extends down to 10,994m.

This measurement for the deepest point - known as Challenger Deep - is arguably the most precise yet.

The survey, conducted by the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping (CCOM), was completed to help determine the exact extent of US waters in the region.

"We mapped the entire trench, from its northern end at Dutton Ridge, all the way to where it becomes the Yap Trench in the south," explained Dr Jim Gardner from CCOM, which is based at the University of New Hampshire.

"We used a multibeam echosounder mounted on a US Navy hydrographic ship. This instrument allows you to map a swath of soundings perpendicular to the line of travel of the ship. It's like mowing the grass. And we were able to map the trench at a 100m resolution," he told BBC News.

The distance to the bottom of Challenger Deep has an error associated with it of about plus or minus 40m.The figure of 10,994m is slightly less than some other recent measurements in the modern era, but they are all broadly similar.

A location in the trench about 200km to the east of Challenger goes almost as far down. This spot, known as HMRG Deep, has a depth of 10,809m.  It is extraordito think that both Challenger and HMRG extend deeper below sea level than Mount Everest rises above it.

Dr Gardner said his team's survey put a huge effort into getting the "sound speed profile" of the water column correct - this measure of how the echosounding signals speed and slow as they descend is the largest source of error in the measurement.

He presented the results of the mapping here at the 2011 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, the world's largest annual gathering of Earth and planetary scientists.

The US State Department funded the study because it wants to know whether the exclusive economic zone encompassing the American territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands can be pushed out beyond its current limit of 200 nautical miles (370km).

This may be possible if the shape of the seafloor fulfils certain requirements under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

But the data also has high scientific interest in that it gives geologists a clearer picture of the structures in one of the most fascinating subduction zones on Earth.

It is at the trench where a huge slab of Pacific oceanic crust is being pulled down under the adjacent Philippines tectonic plate.

Researchers are keen to know what happens when underwater mountains, or seamounts, go over the edge and are swallowed.

There has been considerable debate over whether the descent of the seamounts can influence the frequency and scale of big earthquakes. It has been suggested they might create extra friction that can then be released suddenly to trigger major tremors.

"Our data shows they're getting really fractured as they go down," said Dr Gardner.

"As soon as the Pacific Plate starts bending down, it cracks that old, old crust. That crust is really brittle. It cracks right through the seamounts. Certainly in the Mariana Trench, the seamounts get splintered and whittled away, and then get subducted.

"What I don't see are remnants of seamounts being accreted to the inner wall of the trench."

What is evident, however, is the pile of material this creates across the axis of the trench in a number of places. Dr Gardner describes four "bridges" that stand as much as 2,500m above the floor of the depression.

'Race to the bottom'

The survey is also highly topical in that four teams are about to send manned submersibles into the trench to explore its depths.

So far, only two humans have visited Challenger Deep - Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard in the research bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960.

But those that are racing to return to the deepest of the deep are Virgin's Oceanic submarine, which will be piloted by Chris Welsh; Triton submarines, which is based in Florida; James Cameron is said to be backing another effort in a bid to film the Mariana Trench; and DOER Marine, which is backed by Google's Eric Schmidt and oceanographer Sylvia Earle.

Dr Earle told BBC News: "In 1960, Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard knew only that they were descending in the bathyscaphe Trieste to what was thought to be the deepest place in the sea - the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench.These missions will be a huge gamble for those involved, both in terms of finance and reputation, as well as posing a serious safety concern for the pilots.

"The terrain was unknown, unmapped - truly a dive into a deep mystery. Today, as explorers begin to return to that deepest place, they can do so with a high-resolution map in hand, thanks to technologies that did not exist half a century ago.

"In broad strokes, the ocean's great mountain ranges, valleys are now defined in maps derived from satellite observations and sonar swaths from research vessels, but only about 5% of the ocean has been explored and mapped with the detail comparable to Earth's above-ocean terrain, or the surface of the Moon, Mars, or Jupiter.

"In 1960, it seemed that nothing humans could do could alter the nature of the ocean - or if we did, it wouldn't matter. Now we know that the ocean is Earth's 'life support system', the blue heart of the planet, the key to climate, weather, planetary chemistry. We also know that the ocean is in trouble owing to what we are putting into it - and what we are taking out.

"High-resolution maps of the iconic Mariana Trench may inspire action to fill in the blanks for the rest of Earth's surface - under the sea. At the very least we should have a good map of the part of the Earth that keeps us alive."

Dinosaurs breathed like penguins

Velociraptor: More like a penguin than we thought Dinosaurs like Velociraptors owe their fearsome reputation to the way they breathed, according to a UK study. They had one of the most efficient respiratory systems of all animals, similar to that of modern diving birds like penguins, fossil evidence shows. It fuelled their bodies with oxygen for the task of sprinting after prey, say researchers at Manchester University. The bipedal meat-eaters, the therapods, had air sacs ventilated by tiny bones that moved the ribcage up and down. "Finding these structures in modern birds and their extinct dinosaur ancestors suggests that these running dinosaurs had an efficient respiratory system and supports the theory that they were highly active animals that could run relatively quickly when pursuing their prey," said Dr Jonathan Codd, who led the research. "It provides a mechanism for facilitating avian-like breathing in non-avian dinosaurs and it was there long before the evolution of flight occurred," he told BBC News. Bony projections Modern-day birds have a highly specialised respiratory system, made up of a small rigid lung and around nine air sacs. The bellows-like movement of the sternum and ribs moves air through the system. The researchers examined fossils, including the famed 'fighting dinosaurs' Bony projections on the ribcage known as uncinate processes play an important role in both respiration and locomotion. The small bones act as levers to move the ribs and sternum during breathing. They have become adapted in different types of birds to deal with different ways of getting around. The bones are shortest in runners like emus that don't need large breast muscles for flight, intermediate in flying birds and longest in divers such as the penguin. The Manchester team studied a wealth of fossil remains of dinosaurs and extinct birds such as Archaeopteryx, and compared these with skeletons of living birds. They found that uncinate processes are also found both in the extinct ancestors of birds, the theropod dinosaurs, and in modern species. Dinosaurs are most like diving birds in their morphology. "The dinosaurs we studied from the fossil record had long uncinate processes similar in structure to those of diving birds," said Dr Codd. "This suggests both dinosaurs and diving birds need longer lever arms to help them breathe," he added. The data, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, may provide clues to how dinosaurs evolved and how they might have lived.