As offshore wind farms expand rapidly in the global renewable energy transition, scientists are studying how these large marine infrastructure projects affect ecosystems beneath the waves. Research from Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands suggests that offshore wind may bring both risks and benefits for sharks and rays, known collectively as Elasmobranchii, which are highly sensitive to electromagnetic fields (EMFs). A six-year project called “Elasmopower” examined how EMFs from subsea power cables in offshore wind farms affect bottom-dwelling sharks and rays. These species depend on natural electric and magnetic fields for key behaviors such as navigation, prey detection, habitat use and long-distance movement, particularly in low-visibility environments. The studies conducted as part of the Elasmopower project have been published in four papers, with three additional papers currently undergoing peer review. Sharks and rays have specialized electroreceptors called ampullae of Lorenzini. The jelly-filled sensory canals around the head and snout can detect even extremely weak EMFs from prey and predators, water movement, and the Earth’s geomagnetic field, Erwin Winter, a scientist at Wageningen, told Mongabay. This system is central to hunting and orientation, making Elasmobranchii especially relevant for studying EMF exposure from offshore energy infrastructure, Winter added. Erwin Winter, a researcher with the Elasmopower project, presented findings on offshore wind, electromagnetic fields and bottom-dwelling sharks and rays at the Sharks International 2026 conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in May. Image by Malaka Rodrigo for Mongabay. During a presentation on a summary of the Elasmopower research at the Sharks International 2026…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Deep below the ocean surface, at roughly the depth of 130 five-story buildings stacked end to end, a robot has unfurled a protest sign that reads: “LISTEN TO THE SCIENCE!” A Greenpeace remotely operated vehicle (ROV) holds the banner more than 2,300 meters (7,500 feet) below the surface of the Norwegian Sea, in front of a hydrothermal vent field known as Loki’s Castle. “This marks the deepest banner protest in history, to speak for ecosystems that have no voice of their own,” Sandra Schöttner, chief scientist for the Deep Arctic Expedition, Greenpeace International, said in a press release. The protest, carried out on May 27 during Greenpeace’s Deep Arctic Expedition, targeted an area of the Arctic seabed that the Norwegian government opened to deep-sea mining in early 2024 before reversing course under political pressure. Loki’s Castle was discovered in 2008 in the Arctic Ocean between Greenland and Norway. Here in the depths, hot fluid, between 300 and 320 degrees Celsius (572 and 608 degrees Fahrenheit), pours from mineral chimneys on the seafloor. These vents support a rich and unusual community of life, including microbes that resemble the distant ancestors of complex life on Earth. A 2024 study in Scientific Reports documented the animals living around the vents, including five new-to-science species. The authors suggested areas like this along the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge should be treated as “vulnerable ecosystems” and protected. In January 2024, the government of Norway opened roughly 281,000 square kilometers (108,000 square miles) of Arctic waters (an area…This article was originally published on Mongabay