Recording: Deep Seabed Mining

There is currently a great deal of activity surrounding the topic of deep seabed mining. This is due to the vast quantities of critical minerals that exist in various forms of deposits in the abyssal zone, the very minerals that have become so necessary for contemporary applications from batteries to solar panels to the metal alloys used in cars, surgical tools, construction materials, cellphones, and computers. There is real concern about properly understanding the scale of the potential environmental impacts associated with deep seabed mining and assessing how these impacts might compare to current land-based mining activities. Professor Thomas Peacock will discuss some of the key topics surrounding the nascent deep-sea mining industry and detail some of the latest findings and activities. Topics covered will include the mineral resources of the deep ocean, the history of deep seabed mining, technologies being considered, and the environmental concerns.

Thomas Peacock is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in Physical Oceanography.

Over the past twenty years, he has conducted numerous field programs throughout the global oceans. And over the past decade, his research program on deep-sea bed mining sediment plumes has published the leading papers on the topic in the top peer-reviewed journals.