Sentences with phrase «manganese nodules»

From the 1960s through the 1980s, a new set of entrepreneurs latched onto the idea of mining manganese nodules, black lumps of rock — some as big as baseballs — in which metals are more concentrated than they are in seawater.

Compared with manganese nodules, the seafloor sulfides associated with hydrothermal vents have a huge advantage: They are much easier to get to.

But the prospect of mining in those depths is looming: For example, the United Nation's International Seabed Authority has granted 16 exploration contracts for mining manganese nodules.

Turns out, such «manganese nodules» are home to another kind of goody: a species of sponge never before seen, researchers report online September 24 in Systematics and Biodiversity.

Not exact matches

One influential textbook published in 1965 estimated that there were a trillion metric tons of nodules in the Pacific alone, and a publication in 1977 calculated that the North Pacific contained billions of tons of manganese and hundreds of millions of tons of nickel and copper.

With one he is hoping to get in on the ground floor of the old ocean - bottom manganese - nodule business, version 2.0, which he thinks is poised to take off in a decade or so.