Our endless craving for rare metals is CREATING AN OCEAN-FLOOR GOLD RUSH

Back in 1872, HMS Challenger left the harbour of Portsmouth to begin a 1000-day expedition ion across the oceans. Scientists aboard the ship collected data on temperatures, ocean currents and chemical variations in the ocean water, and they took samples from the dark ocean floor several kilometres below the surface. The muddy samples included many small, hard nodules that proved to be rich in metals such as manganese, nickel and copper.

Today, almost 150 years later, a new gold rush is gaining pace across the world to get hold of these metals. Government players in China and Japan, as well as private companies in Europe and elsewhere, stand ready to race towards the ocean floor.

Given inherent environmental impacts from many mining practices, however, the very idea of deep-ocean mining is inseparable from a fear for the ocean’s eco-systems. So it is ironic that the explosion in demand for metals is partly because they will be required for the global green