A new field study reveals a previously unobserved fluid dynamic process that is key to assessing impact of deep-sea mining operations.
What will be the impact to the ocean if humans are to mine the deep sea? It’s a question that’s gaining urgency as interest in marine minerals has grown. Now MIT ocean scientists have shed some light on the topic, with a new study on the cloud of sediment that a collector vehicle would stir up as it picks up nodules from the seafloor.
The study, appearing in Science Advances, reports the results of a 2021 research cruise to a region of the Pacific Ocean known as the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ), where polymetallic nodules abound. There, researchers equipped a pre-prototype collector vehicle with instruments to monitor sediment plume disturbances as the vehicle maneuvered across the seafloor, 4,500 meters below the ocean’s surface. Through a sequence of carefully conceived maneuvers, the MIT scientists used the vehicle to monitor its own sediment cloud and measure its properties.
Adapted and reprinted with permission of MIT News.
Read the full article on MIT News. Image: Global Sea Mineral Resources