A polymetallic nodule. (Image: Nautilus Minerals)

Deep seabed mining: key questions

Jessica Aldred for chinadialogue ocean | 26 February 2019 What is deep sea mining? It’s the process of retrieving mineral deposits from the deep sea – the area of the ocean below 200 metres. This covers around 65% of the Earth’s surface and harbours a rich diversity of species adapted to the harsh environment – […]

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Rare minerals can be found in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone Geomar

Deep-sea mining could wreck the last unexplored ecosystem on Earth

Olive Heffernan for New Scientist | 31 January 2019 Some call it the final frontier. Having spent much of human history scouring – and scarring – Earth’s surface to extract precious mineral resources, we are now turning to the most remote, and least known, part of our planet in search of more: the deep sea. Read the full article here: Deep-sea […]

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Polymetallic Nodule and Sulphide Mining to Scale

To better help stakeholders visualize the scale of Polymetallic Nodule and Seafloor Massive Sulphide mining, we created this short info-graphic highlighting the size of the vehicles and vessels (base on photographs and best available information) as well as the scope of the mining leases in the CCZ and Papua New Guinea with respect to the […]

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Mining the deep ocean will soon begin.

The Economist | 8 November 2018 Diva Amon, a researcher at the Natural History Museum in London, spotted her first whale skull in 2013, during an expedition to the Clarion Clipperton Zone (ccz) in the tropical Pacific. It sat on beige silt, some 4,000 metres beneath the sea’s surface, and was entirely covered in a […]

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Patania II, courtesy DEME.

Global Sea Mineral Resources unveils the Patania II nodule collector

This week, Global Sea Mineral Resources unveiled Patania II, a pre-prototype polymetallic nodule collector built to work in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone. Patania II is the successor to Patania I, which was successfully tested in the Central Pacific Ocean last year. Patania I was a track system designed to crawl across the deep seafloor of […]

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peninsular India

Deep sea robots reveal mineral riches in the abyss

Matthew Stock | 20 September 2018 BERGEN, Norway (Reuters) – From the safety of their research vessel, scientists are exploring one of Earth’s last frontiers – the sea floor – to discover more about valuable minerals vital in the manufacture of smartphones. The scientists, from the University of Bergen in Norway, are sending robots 2,500 […]

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Autonomous underwater vehicle onboard the Maersk Launcher

DeepGreen research ship reports early positive findings of deep ocean metals

International Mining | 2 June 2018 The first of five ocean campaigns, co-sponsored with Maersk, bodes well for environmentally sustainable and economic recovery of metals. DeepGreen’s research vessel, the Maersk Launcher, will return to port in San Diego on June 4 with positive findings after nearly two months at sea. This is the first of five […]

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DeepGreen Logo

Seabed mining the next frontier as DeepGreen trawls Pacific for copper

Jana Marais | 24 August 2018 DeepGreen Metals, which plans to extract copper, cobalt, zinc and manganese from the seabed in the Pacific Ocean, says it is making steady progress on its plan to become the world’s first zero-waste miner. It has invested $62m since 2011 on exploration and the development of its processing technology, […]

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Murky waters.

Janet Davison at CBC | 5 August 2018 They don’t look like much at first, the black, potato-shaped blobs that lie scattered on the seabed, deep beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean. But as is so often the case, looks can be deceiving. These nodules, and the metals that lie within them, are at […]

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