Deep-Sea Riches: Mining a Remote Ecosystem

In the present day, billions of tons of those nodules cowl huge swaths of the ocean flooring, a number of miles beneath the floor.

One of many largest areas is the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, which covers 1.7 million miles of the Pacific seabed and holds huge fields of nodules.

Life Among the many Nodules

Polymetallic nodules are an anchor for a fragile and slow-growing ecosystem that features species discovered nowhere else on Earth.

For creatures that can’t simply swim, nodules are islands to decide on and construct a life. The muddy seafloor is just too tender to be a house for them.

Glass sponges are the commonest sponges within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. They’ll stay for 1000’s of years and supply vital habitats for different creatures. They’re dwelling archives, recording the traditional local weather of the deep sea of their skeletons, like tree rings.

Different species float and swim over the nodule fields.

This rippling squidworm — which is a worm, not a squid — hovers over the nodules, settling solely to feed.

Carnivorous sponges tethered to nodules snare small crustaceans scuttling close by.

Some creatures even stay in crevices within the nodules, comparable to this pearlescent worm.

Lots of the species found to this point within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone are discovered solely on the nodules themselves. If the nodules go, they’ll, too.

Harvesting Nodules

Mining corporations describe the nodules as a “battery in a rock” as a result of they include the important metals for a clear power economic system that’s depending on batteries and electrical automobiles.

The Clarion-Clipperton Zone lies in worldwide waters and is overseen by the Worldwide Seabed Authority. Giant areas have been put aside for various international locations to mine, however industrial mining has not but begun.

The precise mining is simple: Dredge or vacuum the nodules up from the muddy sediment. However eradicating nodules destroys all the pieces that lives on them.

Mining the seafloor additionally stirs up gritty plumes that may journey so far as 5 miles. These sediment clouds can bury fields of nodules, choke the filters of sponges and anemones dwelling exterior the mining zone and obscure bioluminescence that squid and fish use to hunt and mate.

With out nodules, many of those species won’t be able to resettle the disturbed seafloor. And with little or no pure water motion this deep, dredging scars can persist for many years.

After eight months, the perimeters and grooves of a Belgian dredging scar are nonetheless sharp.

After 37 years, a French dredging scar is softened however nonetheless naked.

Dividing the Seafloor

The Clarion-Clipperton Zone is at present divided into 16 exploration areas managed by totally different international locations, together with areas reserved for a few of the world’s much less developed nations. Different exploration areas have been designated within the Atlantic Ocean and the western Pacific.

The metals present in nodules will be mined from land, however a few of these mines are riddled with human-rights abuses. Terrestrial mining additionally carries a heavy environmental price: clearing forests, contaminating air, polluting water and threatening biodiversity.

Deep-sea mining of the world’s largest habitat — and the little-known species that inhabit it — could start in earnest as early as 2024.