Overview Vast tracts of seafloor in the open ocean are being leased for exploration of bountiful mineral resources by the International Seabed Authority under the auspices of the UN Law of the Sea. The ISA is charged with protection of the marine environment but environmental regulation is a challenge, as the ecosystems being targeted are remote and poorly studied. Given the growing demand for deep sea metals created by electronic and green technologies, scientists are faced with decisions about whether to engage in baseline and impacts research that enables development of a new extraction industry, and whether to contribute expertise to the development of environmental protections and guidelines. Discussions will address the ethical and societal challenges of exploitation in a relatively unknown realm. Guest Speaker Lisa A. Levin is a Distinguished Professor of Biological Oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Scripps), University of California, San Diego. She recently concluded 6 years as Director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at Scripps. Levin earned her Ph.D. at. Scripps and she joined the faculty in 1992. Levin’s research interests include biodiversity of deep-sea continental margin ecosystems including chemosynthetic ecosystems and oxygen minimum zones, the influence of ocean deoxygenation and ocean acidification on upwelling ecosystems, wetland structure and function in the context of invasion, restoration and water re-use, and connectivity in coastal ecosystems. She is Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Association of AAAS, and was recently awarded the ALSO Redfield Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Levin is founder and co-lead of the Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative, which seeks to integrate science, technology, policy, law and economics to advise on ecosystem-based management of resource use in the deep ocean and strategies to maintain the integrity of deep-ocean ecosystems within and beyond national jurisdictions.