Resource assessment of undiscovered seafloor massive sulfide deposits on an Arctic mid-ocean ridge: Application of grade and tonnage models

Juliani, Cyril; Ellefmo, Steinar Løve

doi:10.1016/j.oregeorev.2018.10.002

Cited by 13 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 94 publications

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“…Ten percent of known deposits are above the current 2 Mt threshold of economic interest (Petersen et al 2016). Moreover, mineral content, and therefore economic value, also varies greatly between and within deposits, with those of largest volume not necessarily being the most valuable (Bischoff et al 1983;Boschen et al 2013;Petersen et al 2016;Juliani and Ellefmo 2018;Pedersen et al 2018). Due to uncertainties in the extent and metal content from insufficient data, these figures are rough estimates (Hannington et al 2011;Pedersen et al 2018).…”

Section: Inactive Vent Fields With Massive Sulfide Depositsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of deep‐sea mining on microbial ecosystem services

Orcutt

Bradley

Brazelton

et al. 2020

Limnology & Oceanography

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Interest in extracting mineral resources from the seafloor through deep-sea mining has accelerated in the past decade, driven by consumer demand for various metals like zinc, cobalt, and rare earth elements. While there are ongoing studies evaluating potential environmental impacts of deep-sea mining activities, these focus primarily on impacts to animal biodiversity. The microscopic spectrum of seafloor life and the services that this life provides in the deep sea are rarely considered explicitly. In April 2018, scientists met to define the microbial ecosystem services that should be considered when assessing potential impacts of deep-sea mining, and to provide recommendations for how to evaluate and safeguard these services. Here, we indicate that the potential impacts of mining on microbial ecosystem services in the deep sea vary substantially, from minimal expected impact to loss of services that cannot be remedied by protected area offsets. For example, we (1) describe potential major losses of microbial ecosystem services at active hydrothermal vent habitats impacted by mining, (2) speculate that there could be major ecosystem service degradation at inactive massive sulfide deposits without extensive mitigation efforts, (3) suggest minor impacts to carbon sequestration within manganese nodule fields coupled with potentially important impacts to primary production capacity, and (4) surmise that assessment of impacts to microbial ecosystem services at seamounts with ferromanganese crusts is too poorly understood to be definitive. We conclude by recommending that baseline assessments of microbial diversity, biomass, and, importantly, biogeochemical function need to be considered in environmental impact assessments of deep-sea mining.With increasing demand for rare and critical metals-such as cobalt, copper, manganese, tellurium, and zinc-there is increasing interest in mining these resources from the seafloor (Hein et al. 2013; Wedding et al. 2015;Thompson et al. 2018). The primary mineral resources in the deep sea that attract attention fall into four categories (Figs. 1, 2): (1) massive sulfide deposits created at active high-temperature hydrothermal vent systems along mid-ocean ridges, back-arc spreading centers, and volcanic arcs, from the mixing of mineral-rich, advecting hydrothermal fluids with bottom seawater; (2) similar deposits at inactive hydrothermal vent sites, where fluid advection has ceased but mineral deposits remain; (3) polymetallic nodules that form on the seafloor of the open ocean

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Section: Inactive Vent Fields With Massive Sulfide Depositsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of deep‐sea mining on microbial ecosystem services

Orcutt

Bradley

Brazelton

et al. 2020

Limnology & Oceanography

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“…8.0x10 3 1.6x10 4 2.4x10 4 3.2x10 4 4.0x10 4 4.8x10 4 -2.0x10 4 0.0 2.0x10 4 4.0x10 4 6.0x10 4 8.0x10 4 1.0x10 5 1.2x10 5 1.4x10 5 1. As seen from Figure 21, the resultant force on the two picks are almost the same.…”

Section: Parameters the Lower Layer The Upper Layermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Seafloor Massive Sulfides (SMS), formed by the hydrothermal or chemical processes on the seafloor, are rich in precious and base metals such as gold, silver, manganese, iron, cobalt, etc. [1][2][3][4][5]. Currently, SMS deposits are primarily exploited by a spiral drum with cutting picks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanical Tests and Numerical Simulations for Mining Seafloor Massive Sulfides

Dai

Zhu

et al. 2019

JMSE

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With the decrease of primary resources in recent years, deep seabed mineral resources, especially the massive sulfides, are of extensive research significance. In this paper, firstly, the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) test and triaxial compressive strength (TCS) test on the seafloor massive sulfides (SMS) samples from three different segments are conducted to obtain the key mechanical properties, including the cohesive force, internal friction angle, compressive strength, elastic modulus and Poisson’s ratio. Then, by leveraging the PFC3D code, the uniaxial and triaxial numerical simulations of SMS are performed. During this process, the micro properties in the simulation are altered through a calibration process until they match the macro properties of the SMS samples measured in the laboratory tests. Finally, the micro properties are applied to simulate the cutting process of single cutting pick and two adjacent cutting picks; meanwhile, the cutting force in the fragmentation process of SMS is monitored and collected. This research can provide some guidance for the mining simulation of SMS and effectively predicting the maximum force on the cutting pick.

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“…Pedersen et al, 2010b;Hannington, 2005Hannington, -2013, it remains difficult to distinguish the fundamentals from the interesting details regarding the ultimate potential for sea-floor massive sulphide (SMS) deposits. Several influential publications have addressed the issue of estimating the resource base of sea-floor massive sulphide (SMS) deposits (Cathles, 2011a(Cathles, , 2011bHannington et al, 2011b;Hannington 2011Hannington , 2013bSinger, 2014;Juliani & Ellefmo, 2018a). From a cursory evaluation of these and related articles, it may appear that some authors are optimists, whereas others are pessimists.…”

Section: Validation Of Aggregated Play Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The collected samples will, in the 122 coming years, be used to update the input into the probabilistic analysis and thereby update the estimates. Work along these lines has been initiated (Juliani & Ellefmo, 2018a, 2018b and will continue in the years to come.…”

Section: Resource Potentialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the Unknown

2019

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Resource assessment of undiscovered seafloor massive sulfide deposits on an Arctic mid-ocean ridge: Application of grade and tonnage models

Cited by 13 publications

References 94 publications

Impacts of deep‐sea mining on microbial ecosystem services

Impacts of deep‐sea mining on microbial ecosystem services

Mechanical Tests and Numerical Simulations for Mining Seafloor Massive Sulfides

Quantifying the Unknown

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