At this time, billions of tons of those nodules cowl vast swaths of the ocean flooring, a number of miles under the floor.
A nodule area within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.GEOMAR
One of many largest areas is the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, which covers 1.7 million miles of the Pacific seabed and holds huge fields of nodules.
Territorial waters,
200 nautical miles
from shore
Territorial waters,
200 nautical miles
from shore
Territorial waters,
200 nautical miles
from shore
Supply: Worldwide Seabed Authority
Life Among the many Nodules
Polymetallic nodules are an anchor for a fragile and slow-growing ecosystem that features species discovered nowhere else on Earth.
For creatures that can’t simply swim, nodules are islands to choose and construct a life. The muddy seafloor is simply too mushy to be a house for them.
Glass sponges are the most typical sponges within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. They’ll stay for hundreds of years and supply necessary habitats for different creatures. They’re residing archives, recording the traditional local weather of the deep sea of their skeletons, like tree rings.
A number of glass sponges develop on high of each other, together with a brown vase-like sponge within the genus Oopsacas and a white sponge within the household Euplectellidae.GEOMAR
Different species float and swim over the nodule fields.
An unidentified species of jellyfish.GEOMAR
This rippling squidworm — which is a worm, not a squid — hovers over the nodules, settling solely to feed.
A squidworm makes use of its tentacle-like appendages to gather marine snow, natural particles falling from the higher ocean.Craig Smith, DeepCCZ Undertaking
Carnivorous sponges tethered to nodules snare small crustaceans scuttling close by.
Two carnivorous sponges. On the left, a species within the genus Cladorhiza. On the precise, a ping-pong tree sponge within the genus Chondrocladia, which makes use of hooks to seize its prey.Craig Smith, DeepCCZ Undertaking
Some creatures even stay in crevices within the nodules, reminiscent of this pearlescent worm.
A worm burrowed in a nodule.A.G. Glover, H. Wiklund, T.G. Dahlgren, M.J. Brasier
Most of the species found to this point within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone are discovered solely on the nodules themselves. If the nodules go, they may, too.
The polychaete worm Neanthes goodayi, new to science, lives among the many nodules.A.G. Glover, H. Wiklund, T.G. Dahlgren, M.J. Brasier
Harvesting Nodules
Mining firms describe the nodules as a “battery in a rock” as a result of they include the important metals for a clear vitality financial system that’s depending on batteries and electrical automobiles.
The Clarion-Clipperton Zone lies in worldwide waters and is overseen by the Worldwide Seabed Authority. Massive areas have been put aside for various international locations to mine, however industrial mining has not but begun.
Two deep-sea species of sea cucumber, one sitting and one swimming.GEOMAR
The precise mining is simple: Dredge or vacuum the nodules up from the muddy sediment. However eradicating nodules destroys all the things that lives on them.
Scientists accumulating a pattern of the black coral Antipatharia.GEOMAR
Mining the seafloor additionally stirs up gritty plumes that may journey so far as 5 miles. These sediment clouds can bury fields of nodules, choke the filters of sponges and anemones residing exterior the mining zone and obscure bioluminescence that squid and fish use to hunt and mate.
A cloud of high-quality sediment billowing from the seafloor, attributable to a remotely operated car. A mining head — many instances bigger and sooner — may make a bigger cloud. (Engineers are in search of methods to restrict the scale of the plumes.)Craig Smith, DeepCCZ Undertaking
With out nodules, many of those species won’t be able to resettle the disturbed seafloor. And with little or no pure water motion this deep, dredging scars can persist for many years.
A Dumbo octopus floats over a gouge within the seafloor.GEOMAR
After eight years, the sides and grooves of a Belgian dredging scar are nonetheless sharp.
The Belgian space of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.GEOMAR
After 37 years, a French dredging scar is softened however nonetheless naked.
The French part of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.GEOMAR
Dividing the Seafloor
The Clarion-Clipperton Zone is presently divided into 16 exploration areas managed by completely different international locations, together with areas reserved for a few of the world’s much less developed nations. Different exploration areas have been designated within the Atlantic Ocean and the western Pacific.
Researchers decrease a car to review the seafloor.GEOMAR
The metals present in nodules may be mined from land, however a few of these mines are riddled with human-rights abuses. Terrestrial mining additionally carries a heavy environmental price: clearing forests, contaminating air, polluting water and threatening biodiversity.
Deep-sea mining of the world’s largest habitat — and the little-known species that inhabit it — might start in earnest as early as 2024.
