Lockheed Martin has been given the go-ahead to prospect for gold and other minerals on the ocean floor, ushering in a new era of deep-sea mining expected that is expected to unfold in the next few years, according to the International Seabed Authority.
With estimates of more than 27 billion tons of potentially gold- and mineral-rich nodules hiding underneath the ocean, companies are scrambling for permits — and preparing for an epic sea dive.
The International Seabed Authority has issued 17 exploratory permits to mining companies eyeing the new frontier, according to a report from Care2. The authority is preparing to issue mining permits by 2016.
Seabed Resources, a U.K.-based company owned by Lockheed Martin, is targeting a 36,000-square-foot area of the Pacific Ocean floor where it hopes to collect polymetallic nodules, often rich with rare minerals such as nickel, copper and manganese — and possibly gold and silver.
Canada’s Nautilus Minerals Inc. had its wheels in motion in 2008, eyeing technology that would allow for deep-sea exploration and mining operations.
“Billions of dollars have been spent over decades developing (underwater) pumps, hydraulics and trench-digging machinery,” Scott Trebilock, Nautilus Minerals Inc. vice president, told the The Guardian. “We can use their technology for new targets: the polymetallic deposits that contain gold, silver, zinc and copper.”
Impact on sea life
Environmental organizations are warning of imminent consequences, especially for the marine wildlife that will be exposed to the heavy metals dredged from beneath the ocean floor.
The process would dig up sand and sediment, allowing mining companies to extract valuable minerals. When the work is done, the dirt is dumped back onto the seafloor.
“Deep seabed mining will inevitably disturb the ocean floor and the waters above it, with environmental consequences that cannot be properly foreseen,” global conservation group Greenpeace said in a 2011 release. “What is certain is that it will release large clouds of sediments, potentially including heavy metals, into the ocean.”
That exposure could lead to cell mutation and reproductive failure among sea creatures. If ingested, it could cause death, disrupting the natural flow of oceanic wildlife food chain patterns.
Greenpeace has seen the writing on the walls for years. The International Seabed Authority was created through the United Nations with the purpose of regulating seabed mining. Now that enhanced technology has paved the way for the industry’s growth, Greenpeace is taking its campaign to the next level.
It’s joined by the World Wildlife Fund, which in March submitted a report to the authority highlighting the potential damage to marine habitats, claiming it is, at this point, “impossible to determine the environmental safety as well as the ecological effects of deep-sea mining operations.”
Until that can happen, the World Wildlife Fund is pressuring the authority to halt plans to issue permits by 2016.
“In the absence of such a legal framework, and consistent with the precautionary principle and the ecosystem approach, WWF calls on the International Seabed Authority to immediately refrain from granting any new applications for explorations,” the group indicated in its March report.
Who governs the water?
The seabed authority is setting the stage for future deep-sea mining missions, highlighting a program that would provide shares of sea-mining profits with developing countries. This month, it published a report touting the benefits of opening the ocean floor to international mining companies.
“The study is a legal, technical and good governance exercise to determine how best to capture optimal benefits to mankind as a whole from mining while imposing a rational and realistic regulatory regime upon contractors that will allow mining with only the highest quality mining, social, environmental and fiscal practices,” the authority stated in a release.
Yet organizations like Greenpeace aren’t convinced the details have been ironed out. In a recent post, the organization poses the question: Who will be held accountable in the case of “serious” damage to the environment?
The authority admits there is a risk that miners will make damaging errors. While companies must admit proposals showing competency to drill on the ocean floor, the authority — and world — won’t truly know until the company is operating in full force.
“Competence cannot be gained,” the authority’s study states, “without actual mining at a commercial scale, but at the same time mining should not be allowed without prior demonstration of competence.”