This was a big month for deep-sea meetings, with workshops on risk management and high seas cable laying, as well as strong representation from the deep-sea mining community at NOAA’s Ocean Exploration Forum. There’s so much going on in deep-sea mining right now that it’s tough for stakeholders to grasp the scale of the industry. […]
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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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Representatives from the International Seabed Authority, the deep-sea mining community, and the International Cable Protection Committee met last week in Bangkok for the Second Workshop on Deep Seabed Mining and Submarine Cables. As the world becomes increasingly more connected, ocean-spanning, high-bandwidth cables are becoming increasingly necessary to maintain a global telecommunication infrastructure. The Law of the Sea recognizes the […]
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Deep-sea mining is plagued by inscrutable jargon that makes it very difficult to newcomers to engage meaningfully with the industry. One of the big complaints I heard at the Deep-sea Biology Symposium from graduate students and professionals who hadn’t spent much time on mining was that there were so many acronyms, generic technical terms, and […]
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Applications are invited for a fully-funded PhD Studentship on The Tragedy of Common Heritage. The studentship is funded through Durham University’s new Global Challenges Research Fund Centre for Doctoral Training. The project will require a researcher to analyse the history and development of the regulation of the resources of the deep sea bed and consider how […]
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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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“This is an electric vehicle battery,” Gerard Barron exclaims as he holds a fist-size nodule, dark and lumpy, up to the screen. For Barron, CEO of DeepGreen Resources, harvesting polymetallic metals from the seafloor is not just a new mining venture, it is a mission to transition away from fossil fuels into a new, green […]
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If you were to ask a new stakeholder to name the most frustrating aspect of trying to understand the current state of deep-sea mining, they would likely begin with the arcane acronyms and idioms of The Authority (that’s the International Seabed Authority for those still struggling with the lingo). Not far behind would be the […]
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I like to keep an eye out for classic books from the early days of ocean technology, both factual and fiction. From Monturiol’s Dream to Arthur C. Clarke’s The Deep Range, these books provide insight into how we thought about deep-sea exploration and exploitation throughout the 21st century. This month, I stumbled upon a copy […]
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The Deep-sea Biology Symposium convened last week for its triennial meeting. Over the course of 5 days, participants shared the latest discoveries in deep-sea biology, ecology, and stewardship. Not surprisingly, deep-sea mining played a major role in the weeks discussion. Though it’s hard to capture the breadth of the topics discussed (and many presentations remain […]
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