Polymetallic nodules, also called manganese nodules, are rock concretions on the sea bottom formed of concentric layers of iron and manganese hydroxides around a core. The core may be microscopically small and is sometimes completely transformed into manganese minerals by crystallization. When visible to the naked eye, it can be a small test (shell) of a microfossil (radiolarian or foraminifer), a phosphatized shark tooth, basalt debris or even fragments of earlier nodules. Sea as seen from jetty in Frankston, Australia Look up maritime in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... General Name, Symbol, Number iron, Fe, 26 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 8, 4, d Appearance lustrous metallic with a grayish tinge Atomic mass 55. ... General Name, Symbol, Number manganese, Mn, 25 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 7, 4, d Appearance silvery metallic Atomic mass 54. ... Hydroxide is a polyatomic ion consisting of oxygen and hydrogen: OH− It has a charge of −1. ... Frost crystallization on a shrub. ... Possible classes Polycystinea Acantharea Taxopodea Radiolaria are amoeboid protozoa that produce intricate mineral skeletons, typically with a central capsule dividing the cell into inner and outer portions, called endoplasm and ectoplasm. ... Orders Allogromiida Carterinida Fusulinida - extinct Globigerinida Involutinida - extinct Lagenida Miliolida Robertinida Rotaliida Silicoloculinida Spirillinida Textulariida incertae sedis    Xenophyophorea    Reticulomyxa The Foraminifera, or forams for short, are a large group of amoeboid protists with reticulating pseudopods, fine strands that branch and merge to form a dynamic net. ... Orders Carcharhiniformes Heterodontiformes Hexanchiformes Lamniformes Orectolobiformes Pristiophoriformes Squaliformes Squatiniformes Symmoriida(extinct) Sharks (superorder Selachimorpha) are fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton[1] and a streamlined body. ... Basalt Basalt (IPA: ) is a common gray to black volcanic rock. ...

Nodules vary in size from tiny particles visible only under a microscope to large pellets more than 20 centimeters across. However, most nodules are between 5 and 10 cm in diameter, about the size of potatoes. Their surface is generally smooth, sometimes rough, mammilated (knobby) or otherwise irregular. The bottom, buried in sediment, is generally rougher than the top. Robert Hookes microscope (1665) - an engineered device used to study living systems. ... This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ...

Growth and composition

Nodule growth is one of the slowest of all geological phenomena – in the order of a centimeter over several million years. Several processes are involved in the formation of nodules, including the precipitation of metals from seawater (hydrogenous), the remobilization of manganese in the water column (diagenetic), the derivation of metals from hot springs associated with volcanic activity (hydrothermal), the decomposition of basaltic debris by seawater (halmyrolitic) and the precipitation of metal hydroxides through the activity of microorganisms (biogenic). Several of these processes may operate concurrently or they may follow one another during the formation of a nodule. This article includes a list of works cited but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ... Green Dragon Spring at Norris Geyser A hot spring is a place where warm or hot groundwater issues from the ground on a regular basis for at least a predictable part of the year, and is significantly above the ambient ground temperature (which is usually around 55~57 F or... For other uses, see Volcano (disambiguation). ...

The chemical composition of nodules varies according to the kind of manganese minerals and the size and characteristics of the core. Those of greatest economic interest contain manganese (27-30 %), nickel (1.25-1.5 %), copper (1-1.4 %) and cobalt (0.2-0.25 %). Other constituents include iron (6 %), silicon (5%) and aluminum (3%), with lesser amounts of calcium, sodium, magnesium, potassium, titanium and barium, along with hydrogen and oxygen. JIMMY BLOUMBAS General Name, Symbol, Number manganese, Mn, 25 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 7, 4, d Appearance silvery metallic Atomic mass 54. ... General Name, Symbol, Number nickel, Ni, 28 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 10, 4, d Appearance lustrous, metallic and silvery with a gold tinge Atomic mass 58. ... General Name, Symbol, Number copper, Cu, 29 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 11, 4, d Appearance metallic pinkish red Atomic mass 63. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... General Name, Symbol, Number iron, Fe, 26 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 8, 4, d Appearance lustrous metallic with a grayish tinge Atomic mass 55. ... General Name, Symbol, Number silicon, Si, 14 Chemical series metalloids Group, Period, Block 14, 3, p Appearance as coarse powder, dark gray with bluish tinge Atomic mass 28. ... Aluminum is a soft and lightweight metal with a dull silvery appearance, due to a thin layer of oxidation that forms quickly when it is exposed to air. ... General Name, Symbol, Number calcium, Ca, 20 Chemical series alkaline earth metals Group, Period, Block 2, 4, s Appearance silvery white Atomic mass 40. ... General Name, Symbol, Number sodium, Na, 11 Chemical series alkali metals Group, Period, Block 1, 3, s Appearance silvery white Atomic mass 22. ... General Name, Symbol, Number magnesium, Mg, 12 Chemical series alkaline earth metals Group, Period, Block 2, 3, s Appearance silvery white Atomic mass 24. ... General Name, Symbol, Number potassium, K, 19 Chemical series alkali metals Group, Period, Block 1, 4, s Appearance silvery white Atomic mass 39. ... General Name, Symbol, Number titanium, Ti, 22 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 4, 4, d Appearance silvery metallic Atomic mass 47. ... General Name, Symbol, Number barium, Ba, 56 Chemical series alkaline earth metals Group, Period, Block 2, 6, s Appearance silvery white Atomic mass 137. ... This article is about the chemistry of hydrogen. ... General Name, Symbol, Number oxygen, O, 8 Chemical series Nonmetals, chalcogens Group, Period, Block 16, 2, p Appearance colorless (gas) very pale blue (liquid) Atomic mass 15. ...

Occurrence

Nodules lie on the seabed sediment, often partly or completely buried. They vary greatly in abundance, in some cases touching one another and covering more than 70 per cent of the bottom. The total amount of polymetallic nodules on the sea floor was estimated at 500 billion tons by A.A. Archer in 1981. They can occur at any depth, even in lakes, but the highest concentrations have been found on vast abyssal plains in the deep ocean between 4,000 and 6,000 meters. The seabed is the bottom of the ocean. ... 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Abyssal plains are flat or very gently sloping areas of the deep ocean basin floor. ...

Polymetallic nodules were discovered in 1868 in the Kara Sea, in the Arctic Ocean off Siberia. During the scientific expeditions of the H.M.S. Challenger (1872-76), they were found to occur in most oceans of the world. Nodules of economic interest have been found in three areas: the north central Pacific Ocean, the Peru Basin in the southeast Pacific, and the center of the north Indian Ocean. The most promising of these deposits in terms of nodule abundance and metal concentration occur in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone of the eastern equatorial Pacific between Hawaii and Central America. 1868 (MDCCCLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Friday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ... The Kara Sea (Russian: Ка́рское мо́ре) is part of the Arctic Ocean (in the area sometimes called the Arctic Mediterranean Sea) off northern Siberia, bound by the Kara Strait (West, connecting to the Barents Sea) and the Severnaya Zemlya Islands and the Northern Land Archipelago (East, and the Laptev Sea). ... Siberian Federal District (darker red) and the broadest definition of Siberia (red) arctic northeast Siberia Udachnaya pipe Siberia (Russian: , Sibir; Tatar: ) is a vast region of Russia constituting almost all of Northern Asia and comprising a large part of the Euro-Asian Steppe. ... The fifth HMS Challenger (launched 1858) was a steam assisted British naval corvette. ... An illustration of the difference between the active transform faults between offset ridge axes, and inactive fracture zones. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Map of Central America Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. ...

Mining

Interest in the potential exploitation of polymetallic nodules generated a great deal of activity among prospective mining consortia in the 1960s and 1970s. Almost half a billion dollars was invested in identifying potential deposits and in research and development of technology for mining and processing nodules. These initial undertakings were carried out primarily by four multinational consortia composed of companies from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Japan and two groups of private companies and agencies from France and Japan. There were also three publicly sponsored entities from the Soviet Union, India and China. The 1960s decade refers to the years from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1969, inclusive. ... Template:A year The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ...

In the mid-seventies, a $70-million international joint venture succeeded in collecting multi-ton quantities of manganese nodules from the abyssal plains (18,000+ depth) of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. Significant quantities of nickel (the primary target) as well as copper and cobalt were subsequently extracted from this "ore" using both pyro and hydro methods. In the course of this 8-year project, a number of ancillary developments evolved, including the use of near-bottom towed side-scan sonar array to assay the nodule population density on the abyssal silt whilst simultaneously performing a sub-bottom profile with a derived, vertically-oriented, low-frequency acoustic beam. General Name, Symbol, Number manganese, Mn, 25 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 7, 4, d Appearance silvery metallic Atomic mass 54. ... General Name, Symbol, Number nickel, Ni, 28 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 10, 4, d Appearance lustrous, metallic and silvery with a gold tinge Atomic mass 58. ... General Name, Symbol, Number copper, Cu, 29 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 11, 4, d Appearance metallic pinkish red Atomic mass 63. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

The technology and art developed during the course of this project were never commercialized because the last two decades of the 20th century saw a glut of nickel production. The estimated $3.5-billion (1978 US dollars) investment to implement commercialization was an additional factor. Sumitomo Metal Mining continues to maintain a small (place-keeping) organization in this field. General Name, Symbol, Number nickel, Ni, 28 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 10, 4, d Appearance lustrous, metallic and silvery with a gold tinge Atomic mass 58. ... ...

Legal developments

The promise of nodule exploitation was one of the main factors that led developing nations to propose that the deep seabed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction should be treated as a “common heritage of mankind”, with proceeds to be shared between those who developed this resource and the rest of the international community. This initiative eventually resulted in the adoption (1982) of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the establishment (1994) of the International Seabed Authority, with responsibility for controlling all deep-sea mining in international areas. The first legislative achievement of this intergovernmental organization was the adoption (2000) of regulations for prospecting and exploration for polymetallic nodules, with special provisions to protect the marine environment from any adverse effects. The Authority followed this up (2001-2002) by signing 15-year contracts with seven private and public entities, giving them exclusive rights to explore for nodules in specified tracts of the seabed, each 75,000 square kilometers in size. The United States, whose companies were among the key actors in the earlier period of exploration, remains outside this compact as a non-party to the Law of the Sea Convention. 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Opened for signature December 10, 1982 in Montego Bay (Jamaica) Entered into force November 16, 1994[1] Conditions for entry into force 60 ratifications Parties 149[2] For maritime law in general see Admiralty law. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ... The International Seabed Authority is an intergovernmental body established to organize and control all mineral-related activities in the international seabed area beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, an area underlying most of the world’s oceans. ... 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Opened for signature December 10, 1982 in Montego Bay (Jamaica) Entered into force November 16, 1994[1] Conditions for entry into force 60 ratifications Parties 149[2] For maritime law in general see Admiralty law. ...

A company by the name of Kennecott Copper had explored the potential profits in manganese nodule mining and found that it wasn't worth it. Other than the environmental issues and the fact that the profits had to be shared, there was no cheap way to get the manganese nodules off the sea floor. Kennecott Copper Corporation had its start when Enos A. Wall realized the potential of copper deposits in Bingham Canyon in Utah in 1887 and acquired claims to the land. ...

In the meantime, interest in the extraction of nodules had waned. Three factors were largely responsible: the difficulty and expense of developing and operating mining technology that could economically remove the nodules from depths of five or six kilometers and transport them to the ocean surface, the high taxes the international community would charge for the mining, and the continuing availability of the key minerals from land-based sources at market prices. The commercial extraction of polymetallic nodules is not considered likely to occur in the next two decades.

See also

• International Seabed Authority
• USNS Glomar Explorer (T-AG-193)

The International Seabed Authority is an intergovernmental body established to organize and control all mineral-related activities in the international seabed area beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, an area underlying most of the world’s oceans. ... USNS Glomar Explorer (T-AG-193) is a large ship currently being used as a deep-sea drilling platform. ...

External link

• The International Seabed Authority

Further reading

• Cronan, D. S. (1980). Underwater Minerals. London: Academic Press.
• Cronan, D. S. (2000). Handbook of Marine Mineral Deposits. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
• Cronan, D. S. (2001). "Manganese nodules." p. 1526-1533 in Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences, J. Steele, K. Turekian and S. Thorpe, eds. San Diego: Academic Press.
• Earney, F.C. (1990). Marine Mineral Resources. London: Routledge.
• Roy, S. (1981). Manganese Deposits. London: Academic Press.
• Teleki, P.G., M.R. Dobson, J.R. Moore and U. von Stackelberg (eds). (1987). Marine Minerals: Advances in Research and Resource Assessment. Dordrecht: D. Riedel.