These resources are vital for much of the technology we use on a day-to-day basis, and as the electric vehicles and battery storage industry grows the need for these minerals is only expected to rise. The seafloor in the CCZ is covered with little potato-sized nodules containing minerals such as cobalt, copper, nickel and manganese. 'It is one of the most poorly sampled bits of the ocean floor,' says Adrian, 'but there has been a resurgence of interest in the area, led by both national governments and industry, who want to explore it for rare minerals.' Averaging a depth of between four and five kilometres the flat, featureless abyssal plain stretches for thousands of kilometres in all directions.īut littering this muddy seafloor is something of increasing significance. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) is a vast area in the Pacific Ocean covering some six million square kilometres between the coasts of Hawaii and Mexico. This paper we published is one of a series we're slowly producing.' Mining the depths Maybe higher than that in some instances. ![]() ![]() 'Over 80% of the animals we bring back up from these abyssal plains are new to science. Now research is showing us that this is far from the case.ĭr Adrian Glover is a deep sea researcher at the Museum and co-author of a paper describing a dozen new species from these depths, published in the journal Zoo Keys. With no light, frigid temperatures and little food making it from the surface thousands of metres above, it has long been thought that these plains were effectively lifeless. While this environment contains rocky mounts, canyons and hydrothermal vents, the majority is made up of the endless, muddy abyssal plains. ![]() Thought to cover some 60% of the Earth's surface, it is the largest single environment on the planet. The deep sea is defined as any part of the ocean that is deeper that 1,000 metres, and it is vast.
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