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Seabed mining
Seabed mining, also known as seafloor mining is the recovery of minerals from the seabed by techniques of underwater mining. The concept includes mining at shallow depths on the continental shelf and deep-sea mining at greater depths associated with tectonic activity, hydrothermal vents and the abyssal plains. The increased requirement for minerals and metals used in the technology sector has led to a renewed interest in the mining of seabed mineral resources, including massive polymetallic sulfide deposits around hydrothermal vents, cobalt-rich crusts on the sides of seamounts and fields of manganese nodules on the abyssal plains. While the seabed provides a high concentration of valuable minerals, there is an unknown risk of ecological damage on marine species because of a lack of data.
The varied geological and biological processes occurring in the ocean produce economically viable concentrations of a range of minerals, notably in the vicinity of hydrothermal vents, where highly concentrated fluids precipitate out their solutes on cooling. The technical and economic problems of extraction have not been overcome for most deposits. There have been some viable underwater mining operations, notably the recovery of diamonds off the west coast of southern Africa.
Deposits of diamonds, iron sands with titanomagnetite and lime-soda feldspars, cobalt-rich manganese crusts, phosphorite nodules and manganese nodules are already known. The value and scarcity of rare earth elements is encouraging investigation into mining them from seabed deposits.There is also potential to extract methane from gas hydrates in marine sediment on continental slopes and rises.
Large quantities of gas hydrates are potentially available, as 1 m3 methane hydrate can yield 164 m3 of methane gas. However, the process is technologically complex and costly, so commercial exploitation has not yet started. Estimates of the global mass of marine methane hydrates range from about 550 to 1,146 Gt C. Reserves of gas hydrates are widely distributed in the sediment of continental slopes and rises and on land beneath polar permafrost, with an estimated 95% in continental margin deposits.
Manganese Nodules are found on the abyssal plains of the seafloor which contain a variety of useable metals including copper, cobalt and nickel which are in high demand to produce technology. These metals are highly sought after for the production of batteries, smartphones, electric cars, solar and wind turbines and the storage of green electricity. An electric car alone requires five to ten kilograms of cobalt. The size of manganese nodules are 1 centimetre to 10 centimetres, differing in shape and surface, depending on the environment.
On the Namibian west coast of southern Africa, Diamond Fields International Ltd started shallow seabed mining for diamonds in 2001. The De Beers Group continues to use specialized ships to recover diamonds from the seabed. They extracted 1.4 million carats from the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of Namibia in 2018. In 2019, De Beers commissioned a new ship which is expected to improve productivity by a factor of two.
The Papua New Guinea (PNG) government granted an 'exploration' license to Nautilus Minerals Ltd. (Nautilus) for the 'Solwara 1' project in January 2011. It was the first exploration license for the deep sea. Whilst the project did not go ahead due to Nautilus declaring bankruptcy, the project provided a basis for how legal framework might develop. The lease covered an area of 59 square kilometres to a depth of 1,600 meters in the Bismarck Sea to extract essential resources for a period of 20 years. Nautilus sought to extract a total of 1.3 tons of materials, including 80,000 tons of high-grade copper and 150,000 to 200,000 ounces of gold sulphide ore over the course of 3 years. Considering that the PNG economy heavily relies on mining, PNG had a strong interest in the success of Solwara 1and purchased a 30% stake, later costing them over $120 million (USD) in losses. There was widespread opposition to the licensing mostly due to the lack of compensation to any local citizens and indigenous peoples for potential damages that the mining might cause.
Seabed mining proposals are all based on the similar concept of a seabed resource collector, a lifting system and surface vessels which may process the material offshore or transport ores to land based facilities. Most of the proposed collection systems would use remotely operated vehicles, which would remove deposits from the seabed using mechanical devices or pressurized water jets. Robotic excavation machinery were built to work on deposits in the Solwara 1 Project. This included a bulk cutter to break up the surface rock, a collecting machine to act like a suction dredger by pumping the fragments to the lift pump. This would transfer the material to a ship at the surface which would transport the material to a site to be processed. These are massive machines which maneuver around the seabed on caterpillar tracks. Minerals which concentrate in the seafloor deposits can be rich in metals such as copper, gold, silver, and zinc but need to be broken up for extraction and transport. Natural gas would be extracted from reservoirs of gas hydrate by injecting chemical inhibitors, depressurising the reservoir, or increasing the temperature.
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Seabed mining
Seabed mining, also known as seafloor mining is the recovery of minerals from the seabed by techniques of underwater mining. The concept includes mining at shallow depths on the continental shelf and deep-sea mining at greater depths associated with tectonic activity, hydrothermal vents and the abyssal plains. The increased requirement for minerals and metals used in the technology sector has led to a renewed interest in the mining of seabed mineral resources, including massive polymetallic sulfide deposits around hydrothermal vents, cobalt-rich crusts on the sides of seamounts and fields of manganese nodules on the abyssal plains. While the seabed provides a high concentration of valuable minerals, there is an unknown risk of ecological damage on marine species because of a lack of data.
The varied geological and biological processes occurring in the ocean produce economically viable concentrations of a range of minerals, notably in the vicinity of hydrothermal vents, where highly concentrated fluids precipitate out their solutes on cooling. The technical and economic problems of extraction have not been overcome for most deposits. There have been some viable underwater mining operations, notably the recovery of diamonds off the west coast of southern Africa.
Deposits of diamonds, iron sands with titanomagnetite and lime-soda feldspars, cobalt-rich manganese crusts, phosphorite nodules and manganese nodules are already known. The value and scarcity of rare earth elements is encouraging investigation into mining them from seabed deposits.There is also potential to extract methane from gas hydrates in marine sediment on continental slopes and rises.
Large quantities of gas hydrates are potentially available, as 1 m3 methane hydrate can yield 164 m3 of methane gas. However, the process is technologically complex and costly, so commercial exploitation has not yet started. Estimates of the global mass of marine methane hydrates range from about 550 to 1,146 Gt C. Reserves of gas hydrates are widely distributed in the sediment of continental slopes and rises and on land beneath polar permafrost, with an estimated 95% in continental margin deposits.
Manganese Nodules are found on the abyssal plains of the seafloor which contain a variety of useable metals including copper, cobalt and nickel which are in high demand to produce technology. These metals are highly sought after for the production of batteries, smartphones, electric cars, solar and wind turbines and the storage of green electricity. An electric car alone requires five to ten kilograms of cobalt. The size of manganese nodules are 1 centimetre to 10 centimetres, differing in shape and surface, depending on the environment.
On the Namibian west coast of southern Africa, Diamond Fields International Ltd started shallow seabed mining for diamonds in 2001. The De Beers Group continues to use specialized ships to recover diamonds from the seabed. They extracted 1.4 million carats from the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of Namibia in 2018. In 2019, De Beers commissioned a new ship which is expected to improve productivity by a factor of two.
The Papua New Guinea (PNG) government granted an 'exploration' license to Nautilus Minerals Ltd. (Nautilus) for the 'Solwara 1' project in January 2011. It was the first exploration license for the deep sea. Whilst the project did not go ahead due to Nautilus declaring bankruptcy, the project provided a basis for how legal framework might develop. The lease covered an area of 59 square kilometres to a depth of 1,600 meters in the Bismarck Sea to extract essential resources for a period of 20 years. Nautilus sought to extract a total of 1.3 tons of materials, including 80,000 tons of high-grade copper and 150,000 to 200,000 ounces of gold sulphide ore over the course of 3 years. Considering that the PNG economy heavily relies on mining, PNG had a strong interest in the success of Solwara 1and purchased a 30% stake, later costing them over $120 million (USD) in losses. There was widespread opposition to the licensing mostly due to the lack of compensation to any local citizens and indigenous peoples for potential damages that the mining might cause.
Seabed mining proposals are all based on the similar concept of a seabed resource collector, a lifting system and surface vessels which may process the material offshore or transport ores to land based facilities. Most of the proposed collection systems would use remotely operated vehicles, which would remove deposits from the seabed using mechanical devices or pressurized water jets. Robotic excavation machinery were built to work on deposits in the Solwara 1 Project. This included a bulk cutter to break up the surface rock, a collecting machine to act like a suction dredger by pumping the fragments to the lift pump. This would transfer the material to a ship at the surface which would transport the material to a site to be processed. These are massive machines which maneuver around the seabed on caterpillar tracks. Minerals which concentrate in the seafloor deposits can be rich in metals such as copper, gold, silver, and zinc but need to be broken up for extraction and transport. Natural gas would be extracted from reservoirs of gas hydrate by injecting chemical inhibitors, depressurising the reservoir, or increasing the temperature.