The Deep Sea Mining Summit 2023 will bring together a large array of solution providers, upcoming deep sea miners, members from the scientific community, and those within allied industries wanting to learn more about the opportunities within this emerging marketplace.
Underwater Minerals Conference
The World's Largest Gathering of Ocean Mineral Stakeholders
The Underwater Minerals Conference (UMC) is an annual international forum, with representatives from over 25 countries that since 1970 has brought the marine minerals community together. UMC is the world’s largest gathering of ocean mineral stakeholders, including government, academic, and commercial sector
professionals. Topics considered for the conference include
What are they after?
Polymetallic nodules.
Deep-ocean polymetallic nodules form on or just below the vast, sediment-covered, abyssal plains of the global ocean. Polymetallic nodules primarily consist of precipitated iron oxyhydroxides and manganese oxides, onto which metals such as nickel, cobalt, copper, titanium, and rare earth elements.
Hydrothermal sulphides
They consist of sulphur compounds, sulphides, which form massive deposits on the sea floor similar to cobalt crusts – thus the name. Massive sulphides originate at hot vents in the ocean where sulphide-enriched water flows out of the seabed.
Ferromanganese crusts
Ferromanganese (Fe-Mn) crusts and nodules are marine sedimentary mineral deposits, composed mostly of iron and manganese oxides. They precipitate very slowly from seawater, or for nodules also from deep-sea sediment pore waters, recording the chemical signature of these source waters as they grow. Additional elements incorporate via sorption pro- cesses onto the Fe-Mn oxides, including rare and valuable metals that can reach concentrations that are economically valuable.
Why are they after them?
Primary reason
Secondary reason
We need them for the net-zero economy.
Until we actually start reducing the amount of fossil fuels burnt this smacks of full ahead as usual.
Why would I dare to get in the way of profits?
The unknown risks perhaps? Have a read of the link.
Too many unknowns risk rendering vast areas of the abyssal plain [>2000m depth] devoid of life.
So what, you say?
The abyssal food-web model indicates faunal carbon flow recovery and impaired microbial loop 26 years after a sediment disturbance experiment.
What would be the global effect of harming this environment?
+++++++++++
Insufficient data.
Just do the easy effing things first.
No, not geoengineering.
Just low risk simple engineering for xxxxsakes