The New York pilot deployed crushed olivine across a limited seafloor plot and monitored benthic communities over several months using sediment cores and species counts, finding no measurable shifts in diversity or abundance. This small-scale field test (under 1 hectare) sidesteps the modeling uncertainties that plague larger projections yet still demonstrates alkalinity enhancement can occur without acute toxicity. Unlike pure lab simulations, the real-world conditions captured seasonal variability in pH and dissolved oxygen that earlier mesocosm studies missed. Connections to enhanced rock weathering literature, such as the 2022 Nature Geoscience paper on terrestrial olivine application, suggest marine versions could accelerate CO2 drawdown by factors of 5-10 while leveraging existing shipping routes for deployment. Mainstream coverage often fixates on direct air capture costs, ignoring how this low-energy method aligns with IPCC AR6 negative-emissions pathways that emphasize ocean alkalinity. Limitations include the absence of multi-year data on sediment burial rates and potential trace-metal release, underscoring the need for expanded monitoring arrays before commercial rollout.