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60 st / March 2016 www.sea-technology.com Deep-Sea Mining Vehicles Set Sail The world's frst deep-sea mining vehicles, designed and built by SMD for Nautilus Minerals, have set sail for Duqm Port in Oman. In addition to the three mining ma- chines, or Seafoor Production Tools (SPTs), SMD designed and manufac- tured the full spread equipment re- quired to remotely operate, launch and recover the SPTs from the deck of the ship onto which they will be in- stalled in 2017. The SPTs will undergo exten- sive wet testing at the port facility in Oman, which is designed to provide a submerged demonstration of the fully assembled SPTs, prior to commence- ment of the frst mining operations in 2018. Statoil Moves into Uruguay Exploration Statoil Uruguay B.V. has agreed with Total E&P; Uruguay B.V. to ac- quire 15 percent of working interest in offshore exploration block 14 in Uruguay. This represents a new im- pact opportunity for Statoil and a new country entry. Block 14 is located in the Pelotas basin of the South Atlantic Ocean, approximately 200 km off the coast of Uruguay. It covers an area of 6,690 sq. km in water depths of 1,850 to 3,500 m. Total has completed an extensive data collection program, including acquiring new 3D seismic data cover- ing the block. The partnership is now preparing to drill the Raya prospect during the frst half of 2016. Catalina Sea Ranch Attracts More Investment Catalina Sea Ranch, LLC has raised $1,825,000 from Southern California community leaders interested in aqua- culture. This investment increases the total capital raised by the company to $2,855,000, which will fund the ini- tial phase of its aquaculture facility and initiate its innovative monitoring program. Purchase orders for buoys, foats, ropes, anchors and mussel seed have been placed, and the frst harvest of sustainable mussel crops is sched- uled at the end of 2016. Catalina Sea Ranch has the frst permit for offshore aquaculture in U.S. federal waters. This 100-acre venture will annually produce 2.5 million lb. of sustainable shellfsh grown 30 ft. under the wa- ter surface 6 mi. offshore Huntington Beach, California. Offshore aquaculture has the po- tential to provide a local source of nu- tritious seafood and help reduce the U.S.'s $11 billion seafood defcit. Catalina Sea Ranch will also serve as a pilot for evaluating the potential of a sustainable shellfsh industry for Southern California. A rigorous moni- toring program with advanced com- munication technologies will provide the scientifc data for domestic expan- sion and the advancement of global offshore aquaculture. Oyster Reef Projects Need Monitoring The settlement of the Deepwa- ter Horizon oil spill fnes—the larg- est pollution penalty in history—will bring an unprecedented opportunity to spend billions of dollars on resto- ration projects in the Gulf of Mexico region. But new research by Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies graduate Dr. Brittany Blom- berg has found that the fate of hun- dreds of previous oyster reef restora- tion projects performed around the U.S. remains unknown; an investment of more than $45 million and thou- sands of hours of labor. Blomberg's dissertation, "Evaluat- ing the Success of Oyster Reef Resto- ration," queried the National Estuaries Restoration Inventory, a database es- tablished with the 2000 Estuary Res- toration Act. The act made the nation- wide restoration of degraded marine habitats a priority and required the tracking and dissemination of data re- lated to those projects. Blomberg reviewed database en- tries for more than 192 oyster restora- tion projects entered into the National Estuaries Restoration Inventory and found that, despite federal require- ments to the contrary, monitoring data for those projects were not available. Without that data, it is impossible for researchers to get a big picture view of the effectiveness of oyster restora- tion projects over the last decade and develop better strategies for future projects. In the Gulf of Mexico, oyster habi- tat losses number 50 to 80 percent. Evaluating the effectiveness of resto- ration becomes especially urgent in light of the $20.8 billion Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement reached with BP. That settlement will send bil- lions to the fve Gulf States for resto- ration projects, with more than $160 million earmarked for oyster restora- tion projects. New Method to Restore Coral Reefs Restoring coral reefs is getting eas- ier thanks to a technique for growing corals larger and faster. The method, created by Mote scientists and col- leagues, is called microfragmentation and fusion and can be used to rapidly cover a variety of substrates with coral tissue. Mote, the Division of Aquatic Re- sources in Hawaii and the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology reported that after 139 days, they were able to increase star coral in size by as much as 329 percent and brain coral by 129 percent in their land-based nursery. While some reef-building corals in the wild might grow 1 cm or less in diameter or length per year, the cor- als raised in this study grew at several times the rate of their wild kin. Mote is using the new method to begin reskinning large, dead skeletons of brain, boulder and star coral on natural reefs in the Florida Keys. Robots Map Coldwater Reefs Off England A feet of robotic submarines, based at the U.K. National Oceanog- raphy Centre (NOC), have been used to map vulnerable coldwater coral reefs in the deep ocean off southwest England. This will inform the manage- ment of a new Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ) that protects the only area of deep-sea coral habitat in Eng- lish waters. Data were collected from The Canyons MCZ, over 300 km south- west of Cornwall, England. Collected data include 3D maps of the seafoor and high-quality video and photos, and show the location and extent of the corals. ST marine resources