For more than a decade, The Metals Company has poured millions of dollars into researching and developing technology for ...

New research highlights significant ecological risks from deep-sea mining, intensifying global debate over whether securing ...

Deep sea mining for rare earth elements and other critical minerals could start as early as 2026, even as 38 countries have called for a moratorium on it. The metals that companies are targeting are ...

Deep sea mining has been off limits thus far, both because it's awfully hard, and because governments haven't yet firmed up regulations around extracting minerals offshore. That might soon change, as ...

Deep-sea mining targets mineral deposits on the ocean floor, typically at depths of 3,000–6,000 meters. Most attention focuses on polymetallic nodules—potato-sized rocks lying on abyssal plains—and on ...

The path to the world’s technological future could be found on the deep ocean floor. But that path may come at a high price. The debate centers on critical minerals embedded in rocks on the seabed.

The U.S. government is moving closer to approving deep-sea mining in international waters, opening a contentious new front in ...

A cnidarian is attached to a dead sponge stalk on a manganese nodule in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Diva Amon and Craig Smith, University of Hawaii at Mānoa Picture an ocean world so deep and dark it ...

A cnidarian is attached to a dead sponge stalk on a manganese nodule in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Diva Amon and Craig Smith, University of Hawaii at Mānoa Picture an ocean world so deep and dark it ...

The Trump administration announced this past week that it has entered talks with the Cook Islands to research and develop seabed mineral resources. The Polynesian archipelago is one of only a handful ...

Mining the seafloor for valuable metals could send dangerous ripples through ocean food webs. Tiny floating plankton, the base of the food web, can accidentally ingest particles of sediment kicked up ...