Arctic Shipwreck 'Frozen in Time' Astounds Archaeologists. The wreck of H.M.S. Terror, one of the long lost ships from Sir John Franklin's 1845 expedition to find the Northwest Passage, is astonishingly well preserved, say Parks Canada archaeologists, who recently used small remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs) to peer deep inside the historic vessel's interior. "The ship is amazingly intact," says Ryan Harris, the lead archaeologist on the project. "You look at it and find it hard to believe this is a 170-year-old shipwreck. You just don't see this kind of thing very often." National Geographic

 

Reshaping the Arctic Map. Retreating Ice Reveals New Russian Land. Research vessels operating for the Russia Navy have made discoveries of new islands in the archipelagos of Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land. The biggest of five new islands discovered is 54,500 square meter big, the Russian military inform. The islands are the latest in a series of discoveries. In the period 2015-2018 there were found more than 30 other new islands, bays, capes and straits. The Barents Observer

 

Unusual Mucous-Like Substance Found Buried Within Seafloor Sediment. When Friederike Gründger and her team cracked open the long, heavy cylinders of black sediment drawn from the ocean floor, they were surprised to find pockets of yellowish-green slime buried within two of the samples. The average person may not consider the appearance of such unseemly goo as a cause for celebration, but the biologists knew that this slime, otherwise known as biofilm, was a highly unusual find in this particular location, and could even play a role in terms of climate change. This group from the Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrates, Environment, and Climate (CAGE) at UiT The Arctic University of Norway set out to investigate the microscopic and macroscopic organisms living in or around cold seep sites such as Gas Hydrate Pingos (GHP) in the Svalbard area. EurekAlert!

 

US Ratifies Moratorium on Fishing in High Arctic Seas. The Agreement to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean, which was signed in Ilulissat, Greenland last October, includes the so-called Arctic Five - Canada, Norway, Russia, Denmark (Greenland and the Faroe Islands), the U.S. - as well as the major fishing nations - Iceland, Japan, South Korea, China and the EU. Inuit from Canada, Greenland, the Russian region of Chukotka and Alaska represented by the Inuit Circumpolar Council are also part of the agreement. Radio Canada International