Exploring new frontiers in mineral extraction

The ocean’s deep-sea bed is scattered with ancient rocks, each about the size of a closed fist, called “polymetallic nodules.” Elsewhere, along active and inactive hydrothermal vents and the deep ocean’s ridges, volcanic arcs, and tectonic plate boundaries, and on the flanks of seamounts, lie other types of mineral-rich deposits containing high-demand minerals.The minerals found in the deep ocean are used to manufacture products like the lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles, cell phones, or solar cells. In some cases, the estimated resources of critical mineral deposits in parts of the abyssal ocean exceed global land-based reserves severalfold.“Society wants electric-powered vehicles, solar cells for clean energy, but all of this requires resources,” says Thomas Peacock, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, in a video discussing his research. “Land-based resources are getting depleted, or are more challenging to access. In parts of the ocean, there are much more of these resources than in land-based reserve. The question is: Can it be less impactful to mine some of these resources from the ocean, rather than from land?”Deep-sea mining is a new frontier in mineral extraction, with potentially significant implications for industry and the global economy, and important environmental and societal considerations. Through research, scientists like Peacock study the impacts of deep-sea mining activity objectively and rigorously, and can bring evidence to bear on decision-making. Mining activities, whether on land or at sea, can have significant impacts on the environment at local, regional, and global scales. As interest in deep-seabed mining is increasing, driven by the surging demand for critical minerals, scientific inquiries help illuminate the trade-offs.Peacock has long studied the potential impacts of deep-sea mining in a region of the Pacific Ocean known as the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ), where polymetallic nodules abound. A decade ago, his research group began studying deep-sea mining, seeing a critical need to develop monitoring and modeling capabilities for assessing the scale of impact.Today, his MIT Environmental Dynamics Laboratory (ENDLab) is at the forefront of advancing understanding for emerging ocean utilization technologies. With research anchored in fundamental fluid dynamics, the team is developing cutting-edge monitoring programs, novel sensors, and modeling tools.“We are studying the form of suspended sediment from deep sea mining operations, testing a new sensor for sediment and another new sensor for turbulence, studying the initial phases of the sediment plume development, and analyzing data from the 2021 and 2022 technology trials in the Pacific Ocean,” he explains.In deep-sea nodule mining, vehicles collect nodules from the ocean floor and convey them back to a vessel above. After the critical materials are collected on the vessel, some leftover sediment may be returned to the deep-water column. The resulting sediment plumes, and their potential impacts, are a key focus of the team’s work.A 2022 study conducted in the CCZ investigated the dynamics of sediment plumes near a deep-seabed polymetallic nodule mining vehicle. The experiments reveal most of the released sediment-laden water, between 92 and 98 percent, stayed close to the sea-bed floor, spreading laterally. The results suggest that turbidity current dynamics set the fraction of sediment that remains suspended in the water, along with the scale of the subsequent ambient sediment plume. The implications of the process, which had been previously overlooked, are substantial for plume modeling and informative for environmental impact statements.“New model breakthroughs can help us make increasingly trustworthy predictions,” he says. The team also contributed to a recent study, published in the journal Nature, which showed that sediment deposited away from a test mining site gets cleared away, most likely by ocean currents, and reported on any observed biological recovery.Researchers observed a site four decades after a nodule test mining experiment. Although biological impacts in many groups of organisms were present, populations of several organisms, including sediment macrofauna, mobile deposit feeders, and even large-sized sessile fauna, had begun to reestablish despite persistent physical changes at the seafloor. The study was led by the National Oceanography Centre in the U.K.“A great deal has been learned about the fluid mechanics of deep-sea mining, in particular when it comes to deep-sea mining sediment plumes,” says Peacock, adding that the scientific progress continues with more results on the way. The work is setting new standards for in-situ monitoring of suspended sediment properties, and for how to interpret field data from recent technical trials.