According to J.L. Mero’s 1965 book "Mineral Resources of the Sea," more than a trillion tons of manganese nodules on the floor of the Pacific Ocean comprised a virtually inexhaustible supply of manganese, cobalt, nickel and copper ores that was growing faster than it could be exploited.
By 1970, the United States had funded 40 exploratory cruises, mostly to the equatorial Pacific between Hawaii and South America. Germany and France launched 68 voyages and the Soviet Union mounted about 100 around the globe.
That same year, the U.N. General Assembly declared the deep ocean floor to be the common heritage of mankind and convened the 1973 to 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, which took effect in 1994. The proceedings set up the International Seabed Authority, which regulates nations’ deep-sea mining ventures.
In the 1970s, there were two unsuccessful attempts to retrieve manganese nodules within an area the size of 75 percent of the contiguous United States.
The first attempt, in 1978, tested a system to mine manganese nodules. While performing successfully the entire system was lost over the stern of the ship after recovering only about 900 tons of nodules.
The second attempt was the Hughes Glomar Explorer, developed by the Lockheed/OMCO consortium as a mother ship for mining. It carried out sea trials in 1976 and again in 1978. Unbeknownst to the public, the ship had actually been built by the CIA to recover a sunken Russian submarine.
Lower and more realistic estimates of undersea riches developed with the collection of vast amounts of new data. New abundance criteria for determining the economic viability of deep-sea deposits predicted that fewer than 5 percent of nodules had economic potential.
Through the 1980s and 1990s, terrestrial mines were working at less than full capacity and their output of metals easily met projected demands for nickel, cobalt and copper.
In the 21st century, understanding grew of the geological processes of metal ore deposition and industrial production on the sea floor, and interest shifted to hydrothermal vents instead of scattered nodules as the source of metal ores. By 2007, growing electronics and transportation infrastructures created increasing demand that began to deplete terrestrial mines. Mining technology was highly advanced and metal prices were skyrocketing.
Seafloor mining activities by Canada-based Nautilus Corp., scheduled to begin by 2009, were delayed by the economic meltdown. But in April 2009 environmentalists, representatives from Nautilus and other mining companies, policymakers and scientists gathered to discuss seabed-mining guidelines. In January 2010, the Papua New Guinea government issued a 25-year permit to Nautilus to mine copper and gold 1 mile beneath the Bismarck Sea in a high-grade resource known as seafloor massive sulphide.
A dispute that delayed mining activities was resolved in April. Although not without opposition, Nautilus plans to be pumping mineral-rich slurry in 2016. Other nations are now negotiating seafloor rights with the International Seabed Authority, which has already issued 19 permits for prospecting in international waters.
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On the Net:
>> vimeo.com/85364387
>> www.nautilusminerals.com
Richard Brill is a professor of science at Honolulu Community College. His column runs on the first and third Fridays of the month. Email questions and comments to brill@hawaii.edu.
