Even as opposition grows and the U.S. territory maintains a moratorium on seabed mining, NOAA began a $20 million survey of ...

With growing interest in mining critical metals from the seafloor, countries are now negotiating international rules. The Trump administration is forging ahead on its own, speeding up environmental ...

A brittlestar found on the seafloor of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone [Natural History Museum/ University of Gothenburg] Machines mining minerals in the deep ocean have been found to cause significant ...

Global negotiations over the future of the deep sea are underway this week in Kingston, Jamaica where member states of the International Seabed Authority have gathered to continue shaping a regulatory ...

Drilling for minerals deep in the ocean could have immense consequences for the tiny animals at the core of the vast marine food web — and ultimately affect fisheries and the food we find on our ...

Explorers have dreamed of harvesting deep-sea metals since the 1870s, when the British scientific ship HMS Challenger pulled up mineral-laden rocks on its round-the-world voyage. The first commercial ...

This work was supported by the Pulitzer Center. On July 22, 2024, a team of researchers released a shocking discovery: Deep-sea rocks appear to be producing oxygen in the blackness of the ocean’s ...

A new study indicates that deep-sea mining could threaten at least 30 species of sharks, rays and chimaeras, many of which are already at risk of extinction. The authors found that seabed sediment ...

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.

Machines mining minerals in the deep ocean have been found to cause significant damage to life on the seabed, scientists carrying out the largest study of its kind say. They found that the number of ...