Living with Deep-Sea Mining

[bobster]

Intelligent, balanced article:  http://undark.org/article/deep-sea-mining-sustainably/         Excerpt:  "Between the islands of New Britain and New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, lies Solwara 1, a hydrothermal vent field 1,600 meters below the surface of the Bismarck Sea. As the first deep-sea mining prospect to be licensed for extraction, sometime between 2017 and 2018, three massive underwater robots will descend upon it and, over the course of several years, extract the copper-rich ore. The company in charge, Nautilus Minerals, argues that this process can be done sustainably, with minimal disturbance to the surrounding seafloor.

And they might be right."

[Seanncn]

Intelligent, balanced article:  http://undark.org/article/deep-sea-mining-sustainably/         Excerpt:  "Between the islands of New Britain and New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, lies Solwara 1, a hydrothermal vent field 1,600 meters below the surface of the Bismarck Sea. As the first deep-sea mining prospect to be licensed for extraction, sometime between 2017 and 2018, three massive underwater robots will descend upon it and, over the course of several years, extract the copper-rich ore. The company in charge, Nautilus Minerals, argues that this process can be done sustainably, with minimal disturbance to the surrounding seafloor.

And they might be right."

Thanks Bob

[bobster]

The author is a professional conservationist! " Andrew David Thaler is a deep-sea ecologist and population geneticist. He earned a PhD in Marine Science and Conservation from Duke University, and he is currently a visiting scientist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Thaler also runs the conservation website Southern Fried Science."