A new study led by researchers at the University of Hawaii (UH) at Mānoa published in Nature Communications is the first of its kind to show that waste discharged from deep-sea mining operations in the Pacific's biodiverse Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) could disrupt marine life in the midwater "twilight zone"—a vital region 200–1,500 meters below sea level that supports vast communities of zooplankton, tiny animals that serve as the ocean's basic food building blocks.