June 16, 2011

Mining Beneath the Sea

If mountaintop mining were being conducted 1600 meters under the ocean – where very few people would ever see it – would it make any difference?

Well, it just might, says Cindy Lee Van Dover, director of the Duke Marine Lab and one of the world's authorities on the unique life forms surrounding deep sea hydrothermal vents. 

Mining companies are interested in grinding up the tube-like towers of mineral rich rock that surround super-heated deep sea vents, because they contain dense deposits of copper, gold, and potentially the sorts of rare metals that we rely on for our electronic devices. But in doing so, with massive robots for rock-chewing and hoovering like the one pictured here, they'd also be grinding up all sorts of crustaceans, snails, worms and other creepy crawlies that live on these sites.

These life forms are some of the oldest on Earth, Van Dover says, and though they've evolved to thrive in an environment constantly disturbed by landslides, volcanic eruptions and plate-shifting earthquakes, nobody knows what a wholesale destruction might do, and how the systems might recover. She's trying to work with the two mining companies now entering this realm to develop good practices for both mining and restoration.

Mark Horstman, a science reporter for the Australian Broadcasting System has done a balanced and in-depth (sorry!) story exploring the issues of this emerging technology. The ABC has also posted three more pieces of the video interview with Van Dover.

An artist's conception, not to scale, of deep sea minerals mining.