By Rose Jones, WHOI
Most people, if they thing about the seafloor at all, think about it rather like another planet; a distant, hostile place full of strange creatures. The seabed can be these things, which is why we need a ship and vehicles like Alvin to get to them.
However, the seabed is increasingly seen as a vast source of untapped resources in our resource-hungry era. You are holding some of those resources right now, in the rare metals in your electronics and rechargeable batteries. You have a stake in the future of the seabed.
Humans have always had an economic relationship with the sea, from early humans hunting for food through to its use as trade highways and as a source of gas and oil. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on what side of the often-competitive nature of that particular use your personal history falls. Now, technology like ROV’s are putting the seabed within reach of more than just those of us lucky enough to study and participate in it.
A controversial new use is deep sea mining. Our need for rare metals like cobalt and lithium for your rechargeable batteries is outstripping Earth’s supply. Equally, the way these metals are mined on land can be controversial and cause pollution. Some industries are considering mining the vast, untapped ores on the seabed to avoid the issues associated with land mining. Currently manganese nodules (fields of potato sized lumps of ore formed in some seabed areas) are the primary focus but mining inactive hydrothermal vent deposits is under consideration too. East Pacific Rise won’t be one of the sites mined but other sites like it might be.
There are many arguments for and against mining the seafloor, from the debatable renewability of seabed resources to speculation on the extent of pollution and disruption to potentially unique ecosystems, and risking causing the extinction of valuable sources of new bio-technologies. DNA technology and all the medical advances that rely on it being a prime example, as one of the keys to DNA extraction is an enzyme from a hydrothermal vent microbe.
The main problem though, is that much of what we’re basing arguments on is merely speculation. We have at least four thousand years of experience with how land mining can change and damage an ecosystem and humans. However, we have barely any of the data we would need to make informed, evidence-based decisions on how to mine seabed resources. Most sites are barely explored, yet alone understood. We can’t yet even say if mining the sea would create the same disruption it does on land. Although, the laws of chemistry and physics are universal, so there is a reasonable chance that some of the same impacts are very possible. More information on these sites and how they react to disturbance is greatly needed.
We need to understand these places better before we make the decision on whether to go ahead with mining or not. We’re risking destroying so much before we ever knew it was there.
EPR Biofilms4Larvae project is a multi-institutional NSF grant: OCE-1948580 (Arellano), OCE-1947735 (Mullineaux), OCE-1948623 (Vetriani).
Also find us on Instagram! @larvallab, #Biofilms4Larvae
The Inactive Sulfides project is a multi-institutional NSF grant: OCE-2152453 (Mullineaux & Beaulieu), OCE-2152422 (Sylvan & Achberger).
Also find us on Instagram! @jasonsylvan, #LifeAfterVents