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The United States wants to vacuum minerals from the Pacific seabed at 4,000 meters deep — and most of the species living there don’t even have names yet
Four thousand meters below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, scattered across the seabed like potatoes thrown into a dark field, lie billions of tennis-ball-sized nodules. Inside them: cobalt, nickel, manganese, and copper — the same minerals that power electric car batteries and cell phones.
According to NOAA, on March 9, 2026, the American agency determined that The Metals Company (TMC)‘s application for commercial deep-sea mining is in compliance with United States law.
The company wants to suck up to 20 million tons of nodules per year from the bottom of an area of the Pacific called the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), between Hawaii and Mexico. The claimed area: 65,000 square kilometers — the size of the state of West Virginia.
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The problem? 90% of the species living there have not even been named by science yet.
Potatoes on the seabed: what are the nodules worth billions
Polymetallic nodules take millions of years to form. Layer by layer, minerals dissolved in the water deposit on a core — a fragment of whale bone, a shark tooth, a piece of volcanic rock.
Each nodule contains manganese (25-30%), iron (10-15%), nickel (~1.3%), copper (~1.1%), and cobalt (0.2-0.3%), as well as traces of lithium and rare earths.
These are exactly the minerals that the energy transition desperately needs. Lithium batteries for electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels — all depend on cobalt and nickel.
TMC estimates that its concession area contains 619 million tons of nodules. But an independent report published in March 2026 questions: these reserves would only sustain 8 years of operation.
Giant vacuum cleaners on the seabed: how deep-sea mining works
The technique is brutal in its simplicity. Robotic machines descend to the seabed and pass like vacuum cleaners, sucking up nodules and sediment.
The material is pumped through 4-kilometer vertical pipes to a ship on the surface, where the nodules are separated from the mud. The remaining sediment is returned to the sea — creating turbid plumes that can spread for hundreds of kilometers.
In 2022, the vessel Hidden Gem conducted a commercial test in the CCZ, collecting 3,000 tons of nodules.
The environmental result was devastating. A 2025 study published by Mongabay revealed that, in the machine’s tracks, animal abundance dropped by 37%.
And that was just a test. Commercial operation would be thousands of times larger.
24 new species — and 90% still unnamed
In April 2026, researchers announced the discovery of 24 new species of amphipods living on the CCZ nodules. Tiny, translucent creatures, adapted to total darkness and the crushing pressure of 4,000 meters.
But the most disturbing discovery is not what they found — it’s what they still don’t know.
It is estimated that 90% of the species inhabiting the CCZ have not yet been named by science. The nodules are not just minerals — they are habitat. Organisms grow on them, feeding on the microbiota that colonizes them.
Removing the nodules is like tearing the soil from a forest. The ecosystem simply does not return — at least not for millions of years.
The US moves forward alone — and irritates the rest of the world
Mining in international waters is regulated by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), headquartered in Jamaica. Most countries advocate a moratorium until environmental impacts are better understood.
But the United States has never ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Therefore, it operates under its own legislation — the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (DSHMRA), from 1980.
In January 2026, NOAA published the final rule modernizing the licensing process. TMC was the first company to submit an application under the new format.
The decision created what the Courthouse News called a “deep divide” in the international community. Pacific countries and environmentalists accuse the US of ignoring international law.
President Trump classified deep-sea mining as an “urgent national security issue,” linking it to the race for critical minerals against China.
Is the project worth it? Report says no
An independent report published by Oceanographic Magazine in March 2026 concluded that TMC’s project is economically unviable.
According to the analysis, capital and operating costs exceed projected revenues. Confirmed reserves would only sustain 8 years of mining. There are no consolidated markets for minerals extracted under these conditions.
TMC, in turn, argues that its nodules produce minerals with a lower carbon footprint than terrestrial mining — without displacing communities, without deforesting, without contaminating rivers.
The scientists’ counter-argument is direct: terrestrial mining at least allows for restoration. The ocean floor, once destroyed, does not recover on a human timescale.
The dilemma no one wants to face
The world needs millions of tons of cobalt, nickel, and lithium for the energy transition. Terrestrial mining destroys forests and contaminates rivers. Ocean mining destroys ecosystems we don’t even know.
Both options have a high environmental cost. The difference is that on land, we see the damage. On the seabed, 4,000 meters deep, in total darkness, no one sees it.
With 619 million tons of nodules available and the technology to collect them, the temptation is enormous. But science warns: 37% less life in the vacuum cleaner’s tracks is only what they measured. What they didn’t measure could be worse.
Is it worth destroying an ecosystem millions of years old to produce batteries that last a decade?
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