The image is almost surreal: a huge machine vacuuming up lumpy dark nodules that took millions of years to form, crawling slowly across the pitch-black ocean floor more than two miles below the surface. It’s not science fiction. In the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a region of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico, The Metals Company is actively proposing to do just that. Additionally, the U.S. government has determined that it is prepared to proceed immediately rather than waiting for the rest of the world to reach a consensus on how this should operate.
The United States has essentially left the discussion as dozens of countries convened in Jamaica this week to draft regulations under the International Seabed Authority, a UN-established body in charge of managing international waters. President Trump issued an executive order last year that portrayed seabed mining as a calculated tactic to counter China’s expanding control over vital mineral resources. Since then, NOAA, the federal ocean agency, has expedited its environmental review process, condensing the kind of thoughtful consideration that most people would agree a new global industry probably deserves in a more rational moment.
It’s difficult to ignore the tension in this situation. Nickel, cobalt, and manganese are found in the tiny, unassuming nodules on that seafloor, which have a texture similar to coal. These metals supply the battery supply chains that power consumer electronics and electric cars. There is a genuine and growing demand. However, there is also scientific uncertainty regarding the potential effects on the local life of removing billions of tons of those nodules from the deep ocean. According to Rebecca Loomis, a staff lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, the United States is taking short cuts when it comes to the thought-it-through phase of this emerging global industry.
What science consistently finds when it looks down there is what makes that unsettling. Creatures that have never been named, described, or studied are frequently discovered by research expeditions. Roughly 90% of the species in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone alone are unknown to science, according to one analysis. A pale, nearly translucent octopus known colloquially as Casper was discovered by scientists ten years ago; it has yet to receive a formal scientific name. Sea sponges that grow exclusively on those polymetallic nodules are where it deposits its eggs. After removing the nodules, the reasoning becomes clear.
Michael Clarke, the environmental manager for The Metals Company, contends that the comparison should be between deep-sea mining and the terrestrial alternatives rather than between deep-sea mining and doing nothing. He appears sincere in his belief that the ocean floor provides a less harmful route to the same metals, having worked in Indonesian rainforests where land-based mining has clearly caused destruction. His argument is not absurd. According to a study, species abundance and biodiversity in the impacted area decreased by 37% and 32%, respectively, following test mining. According to Clarke, those figures are comparatively contained. They are concerning, according to other scientists, especially since there is currently no longer-term recovery data.
Senior scientist Steve Haddock of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute challenges the notion that the deep sea is a lifeless, desolate place with little stakes. He claims that many of the creatures down there glow because they have spent their evolutionary history adjusting to one of the planet’s harshest conditions, which include total darkness, crushing pressure, and temperatures close to freezing. Although bioluminescence in complete darkness seems unreal, it is a delicate aspect of biology. Listening to scientists like Haddock gives the impression that the deep ocean is being discussed in policy circles as if it were vacant land rather than a dynamic, interconnected ecosystem that most of us have never seen and still don’t fully comprehend.
Antje Boetius, a marine biologist, makes a point that is more difficult to ignore than it may first seem: among the microorganisms that could be disrupted or lost, it is genuinely unknown whether one of them might have produced a novel antibiotic or a cancer treatment. Deep-sea life is already being used by researchers to create cancer medications. That is current pharmaceutical research, not conjecture. The question of whether the minerals in those nodules are more valuable than the biological discoveries underneath them probably warrants more consideration than a quicker permitting process.
Whether the United States’ unilateral progress will ultimately strengthen or weaken the international framework being constructed in Jamaica is still up for debate. Moving quickly may produce realities on the ground that other nations feel compelled to adapt to. Alternatively, it results in diplomatic and legal disputes that impede progress in any case. Despite its remote location, it appears that the seabed is no longer safely out of reach. Regardless of whether everyone agrees to be in the room or not, the rules governing who decides what happens down there and how carefully are currently being written.
