Seafloor expedition data will help assess future deep-sea mining

According to Dr Adrian Glover, principal investigator of the Museum’s Deep-sea Systematics and Ecology Research Group, by improving our knowledge of what is living in the area, it will be easier to monitor the effects of future mining.

‘It is a simple truth that we cannot move forward on regulatory approval for deep-sea mining without fundamental baseline data on what animals actually live in these regions,’ he says.

‘Our work has highlighted obvious gaps in our knowledge, but also shown that with even relatively modest effort, we can greatly increase our understanding of baseline biodiversity.'”