Seafloor animals down by 37% in deep-sea mining zone, landmark study finds

Seafloor animals decreased by 37% in a deep-sea mining exploration zone, a landmark report has found.

Scientists from the Natural History Museum (NHM), University of Gothenburg and National Oceanography Centre spent more than five years studying how biodiversity could be affected by deep-sea mining.

The controversial practice involves heavy machinery scooping up valuable mineral-rich deposits – or polymetallic nodules – from seabeds more than 200 metres deep.

But there are huge concerns over the potentially irreversible impacts this nascent industry could have on the deep-sea habitat, which plays a crucial role in the climate system.

For the study, the teams captured baseline data on wildlife in the Clarion–Clipperton Zone (CCZ) – an area of the Pacific Ocean that has been targeted for