Page 22: of Marine Technology Magazine (Jan/Feb 2007)
Seafloor Engineering
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22 MTR January 2007
The Future is Now for
DeepSea
Mining
By Maggie L. Merrill
Deepsea mining for sand, gravel, diamonds, oil and gas as a byproduct of oil has been conducted for many years. In the 1980s there was a flurry of investment and excitement about the prospect of mining the sea floor for manganese nodules. It turned out that the land-based sources for the contents of the nodules was well supplied and the economics of extraction at sea was not sensible at that time, however this may change. While expen- sive, diamond mining off the coast of Africa is well underway and dredging operations for sand and gravel continues all over the globe driven by increasing construction activities.
There is a renewed interest and investment in deepsea mineral mining.
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