Hundreds of animals were recently discovered at the bottom of the eastern Pacific, but that was before a deep-sea mining operation churned through the seabed. Once the machinery arrived, biodiversity in this alien-like world dropped by roughly a third. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

Parts of the seabed are loaded with critical metals vital for batteries and other technologies driving the “green transition” away from fossil fuels. With skyrocketing demand across the world, several countries are eyeing the deep ocean as the next frontier for resource extraction.

Deep-sea mining uses enormous ships to lower heavy machinery to the abyss, where it grinds across the seabed, scraping off the top layer of sediment to collec

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