A recent executive order would accelerate mining in little-understood undersea ecosystems.
By Rebecca Dzombak, Max Bearak and Harry Stevens, NY Times, April 25, 2025
Life at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean is slow, dark and quiet. Strange creatures glitter and glow. Oxygen seeps mysteriously from lumpy, metallic rocks. There is little to disturb these deep-ocean denizens.
“There’s weird life down here,” said Bethany Orcutt, a geomicrobiologist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences.
Research in the deep sea is incredibly difficult given the extreme conditions, and rare given the price tag.
On Thursday, President Trump signed an executive order that aims to permit, for the first time, industrial mining of the seabed for minerals. Scientists have expressed deep reservations that mining could irreversibly harm these deep-sea ecosystems before their value and workings are fully understood.
What’s down there, anyway?
Seafloor mining could target three kinds of metal-rich deposits: nodules, crusts and mounds. But right now, it’s all about the nodules. Nodules are of particular value because they contain metals used in the making of electronics, sophisticated weaponry, electric-vehicle batteries and other technologies needed for human development. Nodules are also the easiest seafloor mineral deposit to collect.
Related: Donald Trump deep sea mining order violates law, China says (BBC)
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