Deep-sea mining plans stir fears of ocean food chain damage

Seabed operations may ripple through fisheries and ecosystems, writes Todd Woody

- Todd Woody

Samples of polymetallic nodules at a lab in Pasadena, California.

(BLOOMBERG)

As the US moves to license deep-sea mining, new research finds that extracting critical metals from the seabed generates waste that endangers tiny marine organisms that form the basis of a vast food web.

The impacts have the potential to disrupt commercial fisheries and what lands on dinner plates.

In the first-of-its-kind study published Thursday in Nature Communications, scientists analysed data from a 2022 test mining operation conducted by The Metals Company (TMC) in the Pacific Ocean. TMC in April applied for a licence from the Trump administration to mine the same area of the ocean, which is controlled by a United Nations-affiliated organisation.