It’s already been a busy year for seabed mining. With action everywhere from the Arctic Ocean to the equatorial Pacific—plus the first part of the ISA’s annual meetings in the books—it’s time for a 2024-so-far seabed mining news round-up. Here are some of the top reads from the last few months.
Pulled from the deep: Scientists found a ‘lost’ deep-sea mining site off the SC coast. What secrets does it hold?
By Clare Fieseler for the Post and Courier, published 2/19/2024
This deeply researched, sharply written yarn reveals two things about deep-sea mining. First: companies have been interested in it for a long time. Fieseler follow’s one marine scientist’s odyssey to relocate a deep-sea mining test site dating back to 1970. The second revelation: it takes the deep ocean a long time to recover from disturbance. (‘“It looked like they were there yesterday,” [Chaytor] said, referring to the 1970 seabed miners’ impact on the environment.’) It’s a long read, but well worth your time.
How a US mining firm sued Mexico for billions – for trying to protect its own seabed
By Laura Paddison for The Guardian, published 1/31/24
This piece isn’t about deep-sea mining, but about coastal phosphate mining off Baja California, Mexico—and how a murky corner of international trade law could allow companies to mine over the objections of host countries.
The future of deep-sea mining is being decided—without the U.S.
By Daniel Ackerman for Heatmap News, published March 25, 2024
Figured I’ll toot my own horn here, since this is one of the few chances I’ve had to cover seabed mining in any depth this year. (Day jobs, amiright?!) The piece details why the U.S. sits on the sidelines of the International Seabed Authority, and how some in Congress want to change that. For the tl;dr version, you can listen to my NPR interview about it here.
What I’m watching for at this month’s ISA meeting (series)
By Andrew Thaler for Southern Fried Science, published March 18, 2024
The March meeting of the International Seabed Authority’s policy-making Council came and went—and the mining code remains far from finalized. Thaler has done a great job summarizing some of the key points of disagreement, most of which are likely to resurface at the next meeting in July.
Seabed mining regulator meets as critical minerals drive heats up
By Todd Woody for Bloomberg, published March 22, 2024
Woody’s write-up of the March ISA meetings details the impending election of a new ISA Secretary-General—which could shift the Authority’s direction after 8 years under the sometimes-controversial leadership of Michael Lodge.