The Largest Mining Operation Ever Is Starting Underwater, and the Consequences Are Unimaginable

[Elderberry]

Strange Sounds 12/24/2019

The Largest Mining Operation Ever Is Starting Underwater, and the Consequences Are Unimaginable

Unless you are given to chronic anxiety or suffer from nihilistic despair, you probably haven’t spent much time contemplating the bottom of the ocean.

Many people imagine the seabed to be a vast expanse of sand, but it’s a jagged and dynamic landscape with as much variation as any place onshore.

Space companies want to start mining asteroids. But on the ocean floor, mountains surge from underwater plains, canyons slice miles deep, hot springs billow through fissures in rock, and streams of heavy brine ooze down hillsides, pooling into undersea lakes. And that pristine and unknown underwater world is very promising for finding huge quantities of metals to support the production of our future technology. But consequences of that prosperous underwater mining will turn catastrophic, again.

These underwater peaks and valleys are laced with most of the same minerals found on land.

Scientists have documented their deposits since at 1868, when a dredging ship pulled a chunk of iron ore from the seabed north of Russia.

Five years later, another ship found similar nuggets at the bottom of the Atlantic, and two years after that, it discovered a field of the same objects in the Pacific. For more than a century, oceanographers continued to identify new minerals on the seafloor — copper, nickel, silver, platinum, gold, and even gemstones — while mining companies searched for a practical way to dig them up.

Today, many of the largest mineral corporations in the world have launched underwater mining programs. On the west coast of Africa, the De Beers Group is using a fleet of specialized ships to drag machinery across the seabed in search of diamonds. In 2018, those ships extracted 1.4 million carats from the coastal waters of Namibia; in 2019, De Beers commissioned a new ship that will scrape the bottom twice as quickly as any other vessel.

Another company, Nautilus Minerals, is working in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea to shatter a field of underwater hot springs lined with precious metals, while Japan and South Korea have embarked on national projects to exploit their own offshore deposits.

But the biggest prize for mining companies will be access to international waters, which cover more than half of the global seafloor and contain more valuable minerals than all the continents combined.

More: https://strangesounds.org/2019/12/the-largest-mining-operation-ever-is-starting-underwater-and-the-consequences-are-unimaginable.html

[Smokin Joe]

But the biggest prize for mining companies will be access to international waters, which cover more than half of the global seafloor and contain more valuable minerals than all the continents combined.

Well, with 70% of the planet covered by water, it shouldn't be a surprise that there are more minerals underneath it.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Well, with 70% of the planet covered by water, it shouldn't be a surprise that there are more minerals underneath it.

Just a whole lot tougher to get at for the most part.

i surmised during my oil career three significant technological advances which changed the industry.

1. 3D sesimic which allowed us to 'see' the formation and has saved countless dry holes

2. Horizontal drilling and stage fraccing which allowed us to exploit unconventional traps and more fully deplete conventional horizons.

3. Drilling and production of deep water.  This one gives us access to all those prospects we know exist out there but had remained inaccessible due to water depth.


One could argue on tertiary processes like steamflooding and CO2 as well which greatly enhanced recovery.

[Smokin Joe]

Just a while lot tougher to get at for the most part.

i surmised during my oil career three significant technological advances which changed the industry.

1. 3D sesimic which allowed us to 'see' the formation and has saved countless dry holes

2. Horizontal drilling and stage fraccing which allowed us to exploit unconventional traps and more fully deplete conventional horizons.

3. Drilling and production of deep water.  This one gives us access to all those prospects we know exist out there but had remained inaccessible due to water depth.


One could argue on tertiary processes like steamflooding and CO2 as well which greatly enhanced recovery.

Well, I'm still at it after 40 years, and the innovation list is long, indeed.

I see the developments which made the developments possible, from high horsepower cheap computers and networking to reliable PDC bits, mud motors, and MWD tools (which make horizontal and directional drilling economically feasible onshore), to the internet which allows the exchange of information in no time flat, to cell phones which permit communication in moments, rather than driving 70 miles to town to call a client (If the payphone was working and you had enough change). The changes, embracing other sectors' tech developments and adapting them to our needs or making our own, have been tremendous. Other tech, like portable Mass Spec, has yet to be fully implemented, but will make the process even more efficient by identifying portions of reservoir which may need special treatment or which should not be opened up with the other frac stages. Needless to say, formation evaluation and petrohysics have made great bounds, also, driven by computing and communication developments as well. 

There is still a lot of oil and gas out there, waiting to be exploited, entire reservoirs yet untapped, and we're going to get them, provided the nitwits in government don't commit technological/economic/cultural/species suicide with their attempts to stop natural processes that have been going on since the Earth was formed.