DIVE LOG JUNE 2025 issue 412

By Captain Paul Watson I n April 1977, I witnessed a deep-sea mining operation firsthand as the Sedco 445, a Liberian-registered mining ship, discharged a cargo of black, potato-sized nodules in Honolulu. These nodules, formed over 200 million years from marine debris, are rich in minerals like nickel, copper, cobalt, and manganese. Their discovery in the Pacific Ocean inspired corporate dreams of mining two trillion tons of mineral ore beneath the sea. I expressed concern to Ocean Management Inc. President John L. Shaw about ecological impacts. He dismissed them, claiming the operation was environmentally safe. However, scientists aboard the Sedco 445, including Dr. Robert Burns, cautioned that no one yet knew the long term effects. Another expert, Yale oceanographer Dr. Karl Turekian, warned that sediment could spread for decades, choking large swaths of the Pacific floor and suffocating benthic life. In 1977, economic and political hurdles slowed progress. Companies like INCO, Lockheed, and U.S. Steel viewed ocean mining as a strategic reserve or way to escape market dependencies. Even the U.S. Navy voiced concerns that sediment could disrupt whale sonar and the Navy’s own acoustic systems. Meanwhile, Hawaii welcomed the mining operations for potential economic gain, downplaying the risks in official state reports. Since then, mining remained largely dormant—restrained by cost, technology, and ecological concerns. But that is changing. Advances in technology and rising metal prices have reignited interest. The International Seabed Authority The Looming Catastrophic War on Life in the Deep Sea

has issued 31 exploratory licenses since 2001 and is poised to finalize mining regulations by 2025. Deep-sea mining threatens to obliterate vast, ancient ecosystems. Each nodule is a microhabitat, and the mining process—essentially underwater strip-mining—will create deafening noise, spread silt clouds, and kill organisms that may take millions of years to recover. Tailings could introduce heavy metals into the food chain, affecting fish, whales, and humans. Mining companies are now targeting undersea volcanoes for cobalt crust and hydrothermal vents for sulfide deposits, further endangering fragile ecosystems. The damage may surpass even the deforestation of the Amazon or Indonesian rainforests—but it will be hidden beneath the sea, turning rich habitats into invisible dead zones. Regulation remains inadequate, and geopolitical tensions are rising. Nations like Norway, Russia, and China are staking claims to Arctic and South China Sea regions, triggering disputes in an already unstable global landscape. We are on the brink of an environmental crisis. Deep-sea mining could begin as early as 2026, potentially unravelling the ocean’s life-support systems already stressed by acidification, pollution, and overfishing. How this will impact phytoplankton, krill, global oxygen levels, and climate systems remains unanswered—but the consequences could be catastrophic.

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DiveLogAustralasia #412 JUNE ‘25

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