The Rush to Mine the Sea Floor Between Hawaii and Mexico

This swath of ocean between Hawaii and Mexico for years has been the focus of a United Nations agency, not because of the region’s psychedelic aquatic life, but because of its enormous mineral wealth. The floor of the Clarion Clipperton Zone, as the area is known, is scattered with billions of rock-like nodules containing valuable metals. 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.

Craig Smith, a professor of oceanography at the University of Hawaii Manoa said that, "The Clarion Clipperton Zone probably is the most pristine wilderness on the planet."

Hawaii is going to be at the center of the debate between conservation and industry as Governments from around the world are seeking to mine the nodules as they sit in International Waters.

The problem is that new expeditions have found that the seabed is not barren but filled with life forms just recently discovered.

We are getting to the point where we are exploiting, and destroying, all parts of our planet.