There are a few categories of concerns about the potential impacts of deep sea mining. Impossible Metals’ approach from our founding has focused on removing or minimizing these concerns to create the most environmentally responsible form of mining.
- Loss of Biodiversity: Identifying new species during deep sea exploration is common. These creatures may hold unknown discoveries for science or medicine, and there is concern that deep sea mining could result in their loss before we know they exist. Although “protected areas” (the ISA calls them “areas of particular environmental interest” [APEIs]) are left as non-mining areas, these protected areas are significantly distant from the mining areas, so the biodiversity in these areas differs from the mining areas.
- Sediment Disturbance & Pollution: Deep sea mining may disturb sediment, which can have various impacts, such as:
- Disturbance of animals that live in the sediment. These are typically small (or very small) creatures that spend all or part of their lifecycle under the upper layers of the very fine deep sea sediments.
- When sediment is disturbed, it sinks to the seafloor, which can smother animals that cannot move out of the way, like deep sea corals.
- Increasing toxicity in the water can harm marine organisms and bioaccumulate/magnify. This could impact fish food sources.
- Potential for release of stored carbon in sediment.
- Noise & Vibration Disturbance: Equipment used in the ocean may have sounds or vibrations associated with them, from the motors running dynamic positioning (DP) systems to keep ships in place to electromagnetic waves from various monitoring or communication systems. Plenty of sea creatures use particular wavelengths to communicate, like whales. Noise and vibration from deep sea mining have the potential to impact this communication, which could result in changing behaviors or migratory pathways.
- Light Disturbance: The abyssal plains where nodules form are very deep (4-6 km) and, therefore, very dark. There is concern that the introduction of light sources could impact sea creatures.
- Loss of Hard Surface: Polymetallic nodules often represent the only hard surface in these abyssal ecosystems, where the rest of the seafloor is composed of very fine sediment. Some animals attach to the nodules, like deep-sea corals and sponges. Other animals use the nodules to move around, similar to how it takes less energy for a person to walk on a sidewalk than on soft sand.
- Emission of Greenhouse Gasses: Management of emissions will be a key task for the deep sea mining industry. Ship fuel will account for a significant proportion of emissions, providing energy for ship movement and the variety of tasks the ship will perform. This includes ship dynamic positioning (DP) and the riser system in a traditional architecture.