Japan last obtained exclusive rights to explore the seabed for minerals under international waters in 1987, for
manganese nodules in an area southeast of Hawaii, the statement said.
Seasteads, he says, "would create a Cambrian explosion in ways to live together." Proposed uses for these high-seas enclaves include farming fish, growing biofuel, housing programmers, treating medical tourists, mining
manganese nodules, and breeding genetically engineered super-organisms.
Ye Cong, the lead diver on the expedition, noted to Chinese media that "the deep sea has amazing resources waiting to be discovered, such as hydrothermal sulfide and
manganese nodules."
The deep sea where few people visit has amazing resources waiting to be discovered, such as hydrothermal sulfide and
manganese nodules," said Ye Cong, 32, key driver of vehicle.
Sample 1 Manganese enriched schist (SLRC011-002 14-29m) Sample 2 Clay and Manganese (SLRC011-003 25-37m) Sample 3 Clay and manganese (SLRC011-003 40-53m) Sample 4 Sand and
Manganese nodules (SLRC011-004 21-37m) Sample 5 Banded Iron Formation (BIF) and Manganese (SLRC011-005 1-12m)
Engineered by the Ocean Management Inc (OMI) consortium, the $50 million venture netted 1000 tonnes of
manganese nodules. A report claimed: "Perhaps an even bigger catch, however, was the clean bill of health the operation won from government scientists monitoring the environmental effects of scooping the potato-sized nodules from the ocean floor and shooting them up to the surface." (4) So far government agencies have dominated in exploring the feasibility of deep seabed mining.
The value of the
manganese nodules alone can be as high as PS40,000 per square mile.
They got their start back in the 1970s and 1980s, when it looked as if there were untold riches in
manganese nodules scattered across the ocean floor.
The companies may also look back in history, to the ill-fated attempts to extract
manganese nodules in the 1980s.
Today the agency's silence is called a 'Glomar response,' taking its name from the Hughes Glomar Explorer, a ship built (we now know) to recover a sunken Soviet submarine, but disguised as a private vessel for mining
manganese nodules from the ocean floor.
After three years of graduate studies in theoretical physics, a feasibility study to bring
manganese nodules off the bottom of the ocean led her to Seattle, where she completed a master's degree in computer science.