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posted by takyon on Sunday July 26 2015, @05:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the deep-dive dept.

The deep oceans span more than half the globe and their frigid depths have long been known to contain vast, untapped deposits of prized minerals. These treasures of the abyss, however, have always been out of reach to miners.

But now, the era of deep seabed mining appears to be dawning fueled by technological advances in robotics and dwindling land-based deposits. Rising demand for copper, cobalt, gold and the rare-earth elements vital in manufacturing smartphones and other high-tech products is causing a prospecting rush to the dark seafloor thousands of meters (yards) beneath the waves.

[...] A group of international scientists, in a [paywalled for some] July 9 article in the journal Science, urged [UN agency] ISA to temporarily halt authorization of new mining contracts until networks of "marine protected areas" are established around areas targeted for mining.

"We owe it to future generations to ensure that we think before we act and gain a thorough understanding of the potential impacts of mining in the deep sea before any mining is permitted," said Matthew Gianni, co-founder of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, which sent observers to ISA's 21st session in Kingston.

But despite the warnings, in recent days ISA authorized its latest exploration contract, a 72,745 square kilometer (28,087 sq. mile) permit in the Pacific to China Minmetals Corp., sponsored by Beijing. China now has the most permits from the U.N. body with four.

[...] "The terrestrial industrial revolution happened before we had the tools to manage goals for development and goals for sustaining biodiversity. You can't really blame people in the 1700s for the damage they did to the environment..." he said. "But we certainly are to blame if we don't do seabed mining properly."


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  • (Score: 2) by morgauxo on Monday July 27 2015, @02:30PM

    by morgauxo (2082) on Monday July 27 2015, @02:30PM (#214321)

    Sure.. there isn't much there to hurt.. so long as the place isn't covered in that substance that tends to dissolve all the nasty heavy metals and chemicals that are either dug up or used in processing and spread the stuff around to the places that you don't want to damage. Hmm.. what was that substance called again... that stuff that gets terribly polluted whenever mining is done on land and then spreads the pollution both to wildlife and to human population centers...

    Oh yah.. it's called water!

    You don't think there might be any of that down there do you?

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