![]() ![]() “There is life down there, there's no doubt about it, but it's not as abundant as is often portrayed.” How can we establish the impacts? “A lot of people have a real misconception of what the seabed looks like at 4,000 meters depth,” said Clarke. Some of the earlier press directed at deep-sea mining has warned of the risk of mass-extinction events often using imagery of wildlife from shallower water to demonstrate potential victims, but given the already great cost of mining on land it becomes a balancing act of where the greater harm lies. What they’ve discovered is that while there is life on and around the nodules, including some larger animals, most of it is microscopic. ![]() We know rainforests are biodiversity hotspots, and themselves act as a carbon sequestration tool, so what about the seafloor?Īcademics across the globe have been researching life in the benthos to try and better understand this, hailing from institutions such as London’s Natural History Museum, the National Oceanographic Centre in Southampton, Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, the University of Leeds, the University of Bremen, the University of Hawaii, Texas A&M University, and the University of Maryland, among others. TMC told IFLScience there are 13 grams of biomass per square meter on the abyssal seafloor, whereas in the rainforests of Indonesia (one of the leading countries for metal mining) you’re looking at closer to 30 kilograms of biomass per square meter.Īccessing metals from terrestrial sites means clearing forests, habitats, and ecosystems, making them vulnerable to erosion that can contribute to runoff, which ends up in the ocean. That depth is a crucial point in the pursuit of manganese nodules, because pitted against terrestrial mining sites there’s comparatively very little life in the benthos. “The only difference is that this one is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a five-day sail from the nearest port at 4,000 meters. “I've been implementing an environmental impact assessment like you would do for any mining project,” said environmental manager for TMC Dr Michael Clarke, who after years working on environmental impact assessments for terrestrial mines has now moved to studying the impacts of mining the deep sea. Is deep-sea mining as bad as terrestrial mining? Mining the deep sea isn't without its environmental and logistical complications, but as a global network of researchers is discovering, taking the plunge could well be worth it. Īt a time when the value of Earth's ecosystem services could outperform carbon credits in the fight for our future, perhaps it's time to move in a new direction. It's So Hot In Phoenix Its Cactuses Are Losing Their Arms ![]()
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