Why are countries laying claim to the deep-sea floor?

A deep-sea mining machine

Around the world, countries are claiming obscure and difficult-to-reach tracts of the deep-sea floor, far from the surface and further still from land. Why?

There is a long history of claiming newly discovered territories, of planting the flag at far outposts of the known world.

In the early 20th Century, explorers raced to the South Pole, their sponsors keen to benefit from future exploitation of these unknown areas.

In 1945, President Harry S Truman broke with convention to claim the entire continental shelf off the US.

And, in 2007, Russia used a submersible to plant a flag at the North Pole.

All shared a common motivation – the hunt for new resources – and there is now a new frontier: the deep-sea floor.

Exploration offers the prospect of finding huge amounts of previously untapped resources, but serious environmental concerns remain.

Abysses to mountains

Only 5{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the deep-sea floor, which covers about 60{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the Earth’s surface, has been properly explored.

Light penetrates only the top layers, and the vast, deep oceans are pitch-black, with temperatures just a few degrees above freezing point.

Each time it is explored – by mini-submarines tethered to surface ships – strong lights pick out fragile structures and animals that have never been seen before.

But countries and companies are turning their eyes towards its minerals, potentially worth billions of pounds.

Already, there have been significant advances in the technology required to discover, map and mine them – with robotic equipment built to operate at great depths.

There are significant deposits scattered over the plains of the ocean’s deepest abysses and encrusted on the rocky outcrops of underwater mountains.

They are also on active and extinct hydrothermal vents – the fissures in the planet’s surface from which hot water spouts.

Deep-sea mining, an idea dating back to the 1960s, could now happen within 10 years.

It has been made a possibility by population growth, economic growth and concerns over the supply and security of minerals on land.

Copper, nickel, and cobalt can all be found at high concentrations, in mineral deposits, as can the so-called “critical” metals.

These include the rare earth elements used in a range of new technologies such as memory chips, LEDs, and batteries for electric vehicles.

It is thought the mountains of the Pacific alone could contain about 22 times more tellurium – which is used in solar panels – than the known land-based reserves combined.

Read more at BBC News

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