#deep-sea-contamination

Stopping new ocean disposal is upstream of every other facet: the 200,000+ drums on the abyssal plain exist because deliberate sea dumping was accepted practice for decades. The priority now is keeping the ban in force, extending it to adjacent proposals, and ensuring it is actua

Dump sites overlap with emerging deep-sea uses — mining, bottom trawling, cable-laying. Disturbing degraded drums that are currently semi-contained could re-suspend and disperse their contents far more widely than passive decay would, turning a localised legacy into an active rel

From 1946–1990, ~14 nations dumped 200,000+ barrels of radioactive waste into the deep ocean under a

Recover dumped drums from the deep seabed using ROVs, lifting rigs, and sealed containment vessels, then transfer them to managed onshore storage — removing the waste from the marine environment rather than leaving it to decay in place.

Encase low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste in resin, bitumen, or cement, drum it, and sink it on the deep abyssal plain — relying on the ocean's vast volume and assumed stability to dilute any eventual release below harmful levels.

Collect paired water, sediment, and biota samples at graded distances from breached drums, measuring dump-specific radionuclides (cobalt-60, niobium-94, caesium-137, americium-241) to separate dump-derived signal from fallout background — with fixed reference targets enabling rep

Use an AUV to fly lawnmower tracks over the dump zone and build georeferenced photo-mosaics locating individual drums, then send a crewed submersible or ROV for close visual assessment, radiometry, and sampling of selected targets. Two tiers make partial coverage of a 14,500 km²

From 1949 to 1982, European states — the United Kingdom in large majority, alongside France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and others — sank 200,000+ drums of radioactive waste encased in resin, bitumen or cemen…

The environmental-sampling arm of NODSSUM 2026, establishing the first multi-compartment baseline at the site. Alongside drum inspection, the team collected water, sediment and living-organism samples to study the dispe…

Second NODSSUM campaign (close-inspection tier): building on the 2025 AUV wide-area map, ~30 scientists used the crewed submersible Nautile to make 20 dives beyond 4,700 m onto zones of interest identified in the prior…

First NODSSUM campaign (wide-area survey tier): the AUV Ulyx — on its first scientific deployment — flew lawnmower tracks over the abyssal plain at ~6 m above the seabed, acquiring high-resolution imagery assembled into…