The Geologic Oddity in the Deep Ocean; Millions of Valuable Manganese Nodules
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- čas přidán 5. 08. 2024
- Across wide swaths of the deep ocean floor is a strange geologic oddity. There, millions of rounded rocks, which are essentially solid geodes called nodules, are spread across the ocean floor, seemingly with no apparent pattern. In some areas, they cover 70% of the ocean floor, while in other places they are nonexistent. These mysterious masses of rock are referred to as manganese nodules, which are incredibly valuable.
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0:00 A Geologic Oddity on the Ocean Floor
0:20 The Value of Manganese Nodules
0:53 Where Nodules can be Found
1:39 How Nodules Form
3:03 Feasibility of Future Mining Operations
Thumbnail Photo Credit: Dann Blackwood, USGS, ngdc.noaa.gov/, Public Domain, oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeano...
Google Earth imagery used in this video: ©Google
Paper Referenced: pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1802/l/pp180...
Illustration at 1m5s: USGS
I was tangentially involved in an environmental assessment of manganese nodules in the equatorial Pacific back in the 1970s. There was quite a bit of interest at the time, and several industrial groups put quite a bit of money into developing technology for nodule harvesting. Howard Hughes got quite a bit of press in this area, especially when it turned out that his operation was a cover for a CIA project to raise a sunken Soviet submarine.
That submarine must be one big "Manganese Nodule". Sneaky, sneaky!
Wow. Must be a nice submarine.
It means that Russian's claim of superior technology is genuine.
Your logic is quite flawed.
Wow. The things you find out on CZcams. From both CZcamsrs and commenters.
And the deep sea ocesystem is so slow it could quite literally take thousands of years to recover if somebody harvested those nodules.
The scale of the ocean is vast. These nodules seem to form in areas where life isn't, hence no sedimentation for millions of years. As the video said, they accrete at an amazingly slow rate.
Perhaps you could send a robotic mining machines to pick nodules off the ocean floor like produce is picked by an agricultural robotic picker.
@@borderlineiq There is a lot of assumptions involved in this which haven't been tested for example it has been suggested that the precipitation of manganese nodules may be accelerated by microbial action since there are bacteria known which cause manganese precipitation in pipes or submerged wires through chemosynthetic reactions causing significant damage to infrastructure via corrosion and or clogged pipes in the span of decades. If this is the case then the rate nodules form may vary considerably since minerals that chemically "want" to precipitate energetically are a potential source of energy for deep ocean microbes.
For context it is important to note that one of the oldest metabolic pathways used my microbes on Earth is the use of metal cations as electron donors to chemosynthetically fix carbon by using there metals as a source of electrons to convert dissolved hydrogen ions and carbon dioxide into organic molecules. Thanks to efforts to reconstruct the likely characteristics of the Last Universal common Ancestor of all extant life on Earth via genetic surveys it seems likely that the use of transition metal cations represents the oldest surviving metabolic pathway from which all life on Earth today descends specifically in this case through the use of Fe+2. The list of metal cations which microbes use for this process is extremely long ranging from the metabolic ancestor of iron in the form of the cation (Fe+2) to other transition metals such as manganese, nickel, cobalt, molybdenum to more exotic metals such as arsenic and uranium. In fact the main reason Mercury is so dreadfully toxic is because these microbes convert free mercury into methylmercury(CH3Hg)
These reactions can notably be fueled either higher up in the water column by anaerobic photosynthesis by pelagic microbes or on the sea floor by benthic chemosynthetic microbes. The latter would be much slower to occur but these microbes are extremely resilient and long lived. In fact some chemosynthetic microbes metabolically alter rocks as a source of energy and have been recovered living within core samples taken from kilometers below the surface. Ultimately wherever there is a chemically favorable chemical reaction on Earth it seems life is there to find a way, in fact it seems increasingly likely that it may in fact be reactions like these particularly those occurring in much more energetically concentrated environments around hydrothermal vents are the prerequisite site of abiogenesis in the ancient late Hadean ocean(s) of Earth some 4 billion years ago.
@@danielvonbose557 if that were possible, the rate of harvest would quickly exceed the rate of growth. You'd exhaust the resource in no time flat.
@@Dragrath1 Dang! Thank you, that was delicious! The occasional rare gem of a comment is why I read CZcams comments!
This is what we crave in CZcams -- genuinely wild, unexpected, crazy and therefore interesting info. Thank you!
@Miss Understanding getting lost in the rabbit holes of life is how we find ourselves.
@Miss Understanding The more you learn, the more we learn how much there is to learn -- or to put it another way, how little we know) ;-)
Fascinating, and some really interesting work being done to get these into production: https: czcams.com/video/Ib4azYzQY9k/video.html
I'm waiting on more stupid cat vids. Humanoids are so lame.
Koombana Bay in Western Australia had tons of them, they were dredge mined in the 1970's as a happy byproduct of deepening the shipping channels in the bay. They are spectacular when cut in half showing tin, Zink, gold and other metals.
I recall that Howard Hughes was contracted to recover a sunken Soviet submarine. The cover story was that his new vessel, the Glomar Explorer, was publicly described as being a mining vessel going for these very same objects.
I first heard about the manganese nodules in a science newsletter distributed to 8th grade students in the late 1960s. As then, I wonder if nodule mining would be environmentally destructive. It's definitely profitable. Manganese steel is the most wear and impact resistant steel available.
I don't know what your newsletter was, but it's funny at 66 all the little science items of the time I retain from My Weekly Reader. Manganese nodules is one.
For this much profit, the deep ocean crabs are basically screwed. Mining companies will find a way to excuse it, and will buy any politicians they need to get mining approved.
I've known about Manganese nodules, and the plans to harvest them since childhood, but never thought to question where they came from or how they formed . The books I read implied they were all over the sea floor everywhere- given that deep sea exploration was only just becoming a thing back then, it may well be the book authors weren't aware they tended to be locally abundant. The book also talked about fish farming as a future sea venture, which has come true, though, sadly, the bubble pens used to keep the fish in, haven't!
Isn't that what Howard Hughes with the Glomar Explorer said it was mining as a cover for Project Azorian?
Yep.
I watched the video with the expectation that the clandestine operation to recover K-129 would at least be mentioned,
I always found nodules interesting as I have found some that contain fossils like coprolites and fish teeth (although mine are not made of manganese).
I actually wasn't sure how nodules in general formed as I havn't really dug deep into geology and this was really useful to know, thank you!
This is so cool! Thank you so much for making a video about this!
While they may be abiogenic it has been suggested that the precipitation of manganese nodules may be accelerated by microbial action since there are bacteria known which cause manganese precipitation in pipes or submerged wires through chemosynthetic reactions causing significant damage to infrastructure via corrosion and or clogged pipes in the span of decades. If this is the case then the rate nodules form may vary considerably since minerals that chemically "want" to precipitate energetically are a potential source of energy for deep ocean microbes.
For context it is important to note that one of the oldest metabolic pathways used my microbes on Earth is the use of metal cations as electron donors to chemosynthetically fix carbon by using there metals as a source of electrons to convert dissolved hydrogen ions and carbon dioxide into organic molecules. Thanks to efforts to reconstruct the likely characteristics of the Last Universal common Ancestor of all extant life on Earth via genetic surveys it seems likely that the use of transition metal cations represents the oldest surviving metabolic pathway from which all life on Earth today descends specifically in this case through the use of Fe+2. The list of metal cations which microbes use for this process is extremely long ranging from the metabolic ancestor of iron in the form of the cation (Fe+2) to other transition metals such as manganese, nickel, cobalt, molybdenum to more exotic metals such as arsenic and uranium. In fact the main reason Mercury is so dreadfully toxic is because these microbes convert free mercury into methylmercury(CH3Hg)
These reactions can notably be fueled either higher up in the water column by anaerobic photosynthesis by pelagic microbes or on the sea floor by benthic chemosynthetic microbes. The latter would be much slower to occur but these microbes are extremely resilient and long lived. In fact some chemosynthetic microbes metabolically alter rocks as a source of energy and have been recovered living within core samples taken from kilometers below the surface.
Even today 4 billion years later other metabolisms in more "complex" life still rely on iron and other transition metals such as molybdenum as catalysts for various forms of respiration, nitrogen fixation, carbon fixation, DNA/RNA replication/transcription. Virtually every metabolic process at one point seems to have relied on metal cations and while more complex life at the surface has phased many of these out of use via natural selection particularly as a response to rising levels of molecular oxygen down below the surface in the hydrated upper crust or across the abyssal plains bacteria and archaea continue to use these metabolisms,
it seems like an unlikely coincidence that manganese nodules just happen to involve the same metal cations that anaerobic prokaryotic life preferentially uses to fix carbon via dissolved hydrogen ions.
TDLR manganese nodules are likely partially biological in origin explaining the deep ocean concentration of life around them but also the faster than expected formation of such nodules.
^interesting science read
You really are " Spock " aren't you.
This was absolutely excellent. I love these lesser known subjects, like the gold erupting volcanoes.
Fascinating
Just found your channel a few days ago. I love your content and am trying to work my way through all you vids. So interesting and informative! Can't wait to get through it all!
Who knew...thank you for all of these unusual or not commonly known subjects. I keep learning thanks to you.
How difficult would it be to find these nodules from ancient seas that are now dry land?
If they had been lifted up to dry land the cost to mine them would be minimal in comparison to the seas.
ASK THE ROCK HOUNDERS.
They seem to be uncommon, occurring in small zones. The one area that was shallow was the Baltic. I wonder how shallow they are there.
Not sure it's impossible but I imagine it would be extremely rare. Shallow marine sediments are often incorporated into continental landmasses, but the deep ocean has dense, ultramafic rock which normally subducts if it's ever forced into a continent. There are small areas of deep marine ultramafic rock exposed in terrestrial environments near subduction zones, but they are heavily metamorphosed and I doubt nodules would survive the violent process of uplift intact.
Eroded.
I live in northern Italy, near the Dolomites area, and have found some of those nodules in my travels.
It is easier to spot iron deposits in white limestone, as they release a rust-like leachate into stone, or on debris where they are often mistaken for meteorites.
Thank you fir covering this. I love this topic! I was facinated once i learned about them.
GeologyHub, I’m kinda disappointed that you didn’t mention the Glomar Explorer whose cover story was mining manganese nodules. 😊
At that time, I was working for the company that made the cable for the Glomar Explorer that controlled the remote apparatus at the sea floor.
Greetings from Sweden.
Man im glad that i found this channel!
You Sir just got yourself a new subscriber!
i had not expected the concise cost benefit analysis. After a lifetime of hype, hope and concern i know at last... it ain't happen' anytime soon !:-)
Thank you. This was a very nice surprise 🙏
Can't wait to see your video about the Krakatoa eruption update!!!
Wow that was very interesting ! I am so speechless ! Our planet is such a marvelous wonder.
Your obvious excitement for the content really engaged me.
I talked with a company at SME this winter who’s trying to develop an operation like this in the Cook Islands. I’m not sure how close they are, but they were looking for interns. Sounds like a dream job to me haha
wow This was fascinating and so educational thank you👍
Glad to see some analytic geology.
I hope no one ever figures out how to mine them. We’ve destroyed enough ecosystems already. And no, I’m not a snowflake! But I am old, and have seen the changes over my lifetime.
I agree the human race is not evolved enough. All we do is waste our resources on vanity. Another 10000 years we would wish we saved our resources for beneficial technologies we cannot comprehend at this time. Interesting statement. 🤓
me too ! :( I live in a delta/swamp that suffered IMPORTANT ecological changes.... We are what we ARE ! this is what we DO
....but sometimes i raise my eyes into the sky at night ! :) its ...strangely CALMING and weirdly reassuring looking at it. The way that the sea...somewhat does it but not quite so ...We need to PROCEED with caution or recklessly ! :( The TIME itself might prove to be...just AS PRECIOUS as our homeland/lifeforms.
Don't worry our chance of surviving as a species is low. Personally l think we just got lucky and a few of us survived the last great extinction event 12,000 years ago which took out our predators allowing us to flourish. In the end all that will be left of us will be a thin colorful plastic line in rock strata for a future race to ponder over.
@@graham2631 dismal prediction. I hope, for my grandkids sake, that you are wrong!
Who says geology is boring. This is real drama.
Subscribed. Thanks from rainy Vienna, Scott
true ! :)
That is so very interesting. Thank you.
Thanks for bursting my bubble there, @GeologyHub. All set to cash in -- but 12,000 ft deep is awfully hard to do with a snorkel.
Was getting ready to grab my flippers and snorkel, glad I watched the rest of the vid lol
There was a similar story when the CIA recruited Howard Hughes for a ship to mine the ocean floor as a cover for their trying to recover a Soviet sub that sank
it didnt sunk it was on special waiting operation
Thanks, these seem very interesting, any wait to do a degree in geology, it is all very interesting to me
Manganese is an interesting rock/metal. I have a few pieces of basalt with desert varnish on the outer surface . The Hickey basalts are grey/black/red/or brown, most formed between 4-20 mya and they are high in iron usually around where I live in central Arizona.
Fascinating! But I hope not all natural environments are exploited or ravished just for a profit...
Hah!
Mankind has been doing just that since he came down off the trees. Wait, he was exploiting the trees for
their fruit so ever earlier than what I said!
noooo...just a few only ! and even then with GREAT caution
Thanks for the informative Video 👍
"Hon, get your bathing suit on.. We're going swimming!"
are there any places where you can find nodules on the surface? either recent ones that have been brought up by a hurricane or something or ancient ones that have been fossilized?
Fossilized rocks? Is that a thing?
@@Primalxbeast as a figure of speech yeah, just look at conglomerates and breccias
Do hurricanes disturb the deep sea floor? I've only heard of the shallows being churned. Same with tsunamis. The waves don't really affect the deep floor, other than the actual subsidence zone, which is covered, not brought up. Rocks float poorly.
@@borderlineiq idk i was just using it as an example
@@borderlineiq Short answer: no.
Long answer: There is a demarcation line called the Storm Wave Base, meaning the maximal depth the strongest storm can affect the sediment under water. This zone can reach up to 60m down into the water, so it will not even reach the continental shelf (which is located at 100-200m depth). The sea floor, let alone the deep end, will never be affected by even the most severe storm on the surface.
Very interesting! Thank you.
What a calm, pleasant, peaceful voice. I'm going to start listening to this when I go to sleep and hope I learn something through osmosis. 😂
Very interesting! Thanks!
These nodules made a cameo appearance in John Brunner's novel Stand On Zanzibar, as the target of MAMP, the Mid-Atlantic Mining Project.
I never knew! Great Channel, subd
Is there any place where we can find them on land?
I was going to say leave them alone but the miners are already in there. Awesome video Thank you
Thanks for the info. Further details?
Oh goodie - let's send out the Glomar Explorer once again!
nice radio voice, love the up speak
Think I requested it in another video, but I'd like to see a video on Mt Shasta in northern California, and the Shasta Caverns cave system in the same area
Interesting.
Thank you.
Awesom channel!
That's freaking awesome!
I think I’ve found some of these in Missouri! There used to be an ocean here 🤷🏻♂️
One topic I would like for you to bring up is how volcanoes are usually the source of a lot of gemstones and how some volcanoes have very unique gym Stones like your Mount Saint Helens has a very unique a green gemstone there are places in Oregon where there's a lot of volcanoes that have brought up a lot of different minerals and gemstones like the Sunstone which is very interesting and how volcanoes in South Africa were the source of most of the diamonds and also how volcanoes bring up minerals from the core of the Earth and also how Kilauea in Hawaii brought up a whole bunch of Peridot or Olivine Jim Stones in its last major volcanic eruption and also how rare it is for volcanoes to bring up gemstones cuz not every single one does thank you very much I'm enjoying your channel I've always been interested in volcanoes since I was a kid I've been able to see Mount Saint Helens in real life when I was a kid years ago always been fascinated by volcanoes they're extremely powerful and deadly but yet they're beautiful you grow a respect for such a force of nature peace out into the world have a great day
Very interesting!
Tectonic forces often uplift sea floors into dry land. Could one therefore expect surface deposits of ancient manganese nodules? Ditto black smokers. Are there any such deposits known?
Gareth Williams, several successfully mined mineral deposits on land were once "black smokers" out at sea and commonly contained rather rich concentrations of silver and lead, for example. The silver mines in Eureka, Utah (now played out) were such an example. I explored these mines in the 1960's before they were closed and sealed by BLM in about 1975. They were not considered nearly as "risky" for cave ins as they were for environmental contamination to the cave explorers (lead). The local college (BYU) had sanctioned geology student field trips into these mines back in the 1940's (my father attended a couple). The CEO of this mine donated the money for the purchase of the land that BYU was built on.
@@richardrobertson1331 Thanks for the reply. I grew up in north Wales surrounded by gold, copper, lead and manganese mines. These minerals (except gold) were in sulphite form, which made me wonder if they were due to black smoker systems. I too used to explore these mines until H&S blocked them off. There’s a mountain with a goldmine (Gwynfynydd) that’s almost hollow and which you could climb up from the inside.
@@garethwilliams2173 I enjoyed your comment. I don't think of Wales as a mining area but some of the best rock masons emigrated from Wales to the US, so they probably had large deposits of marble and granite, as well.
@@richardrobertson1331 i didn't know black people were in charge of sealing the mines, great info!
@@Moistened_Ewok BLM is a US government office (Bureau of Land Management) and lately also a political movement and expensive home financing means for its leaders in Southern California but totally unrelated to the governmental agency.
On the Dempster Highway over by the Richards mountains these can be found, I might still have one left but when you cut them or break them they look the same inside they're all over the place and nobody can explain them
Would any of these be found in sedimentary rock in mountain ranges that were once ocean floor? I live along the Appalachian mountains and often find fossils of sea creatures covered in all types of quarts(clear, smokey, citrine, and rose). Was wondering if perhaps some of the odd round stones I find being exposed as "softer" sedimentary rock breaks off of cliffs etc. could be them from long ago. There are mines for all the minerals listed all along these ranges, so the "ingredients " are all there. I don't have a metal detector and I can't cut cross-sections of rock as of now, so I can't really check them, although if it is a possibility, I would be willing to aquire such capabilities. For fun not profit. Thanks.
So I have heard of this but I have a question. Have any terrestrial deposits of these nodules been found on the continents through plate tectonic processes? If not, are these nodules re-dissolved or subducted so that no deposits have been uplifted? I know deep sea sedimentary deposits are widespread on the continents so have any been found with these nodules?
Interesting question.
They're called geodes on land
@@stevenkunkle3857 Geodes form differently.
MUST find a cost effective way to mine it ALL! Who needs intact ocean environments.
No one can see it so it's all good.
15 minutes after every module is mined, we will discover that all sea life is dependent on them.
..... The End.
yeah yeah yeah... we ''discovered'' in the 90's that the coral is dying and in 2018 we discovered that the coral is just SHIFTING from one specie to another WITHOUT extinguishing the other one
Fascinating!
Excellent
In the 70’s an ocean mining consortium led by Kennecott Copper Corporation designed a concept system that employed a vacuum sweeper towed across the seabed by a surface vessel. The sweeper and ship were connected via a large diameter pipe that leveraged the differential pressure of water to suck a slurry of nodules, sand and debris up toward the surface. The system required a series of centrifugal pumps at various depths along the pipe catenary to get the material to the surface. Among the many thorny issues, in addition to cost: to be economically viable the mining ship would have to operate continuously, periodically offloading the cargo onto a transport ship through some kind of high line conveyer system; extreme environmental degradation on the sea floor and in the process of separating out the nodules; the obvious need for extremely high grade materials for the plumbing and pumps; identifying a near shore facility location to process the ore (no US ports would entertain the idea). But the nail in the coffin was the International Seabed Authority, a governing body of the UN Law of the Sea charter, which rules that any economic resources obtained from an area outside of any country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (a 200 mile limit, in most cases) must be shared equitably among all UN member nations. But it was a fun project to be involved in for a couple of years out of college!
Are there any places on earth where ancient sea bed that contains these nodules has been lifted above sea level?
40 years from now as I smoke my pipe, on my luxury yacht, talking to my grandchildren: "I remember that day I saw a youtube video on manganese nodules, at that point I knew I would one day become the worlds richest underwater miner and save the planet from a copper shortage. And the rest, kids, is history...."
I thought at the beginning of this video that these nodules could only be formed by vulcanic activity...
Informative video i know the excistence of such nodules due watching seafloor explorations be EV nautilus
Me: "they look like little chocolate balls made of ground up Oreo Cookies"
Awesome video. Have you ever looked into The Metals Company? They're going to be doing this.
Fascinating!!!
🖖🤔
Since you've made a vid abt Tambora, can you make a video aby Satonda Island? The small volcanic island near Tambora tht is apparently older than Tambora.
Nice video
You should take a look at the mud pit that is moving by the Salten Sea in California. I find it quite enteresting.
czcams.com/video/OWJZeqoH008/video.html
I assume that one? Pretty fascinating you are right.
I woke up one morning and found manganese nodules under my pillow.
I found me a nodule, underneath the water. Couldn't get to it, thought I'd ask an otter. He told me no way, cant hold his air. Thus instead, I turned to AquaBear. - a poem by Bo. Needs a lil' work though.
As a child back in the 1970s I think I remember a National Geographic magazine showing pictures is nodules on the floor of the ocean somewhere around Africa
Manganese Nodules! Manganese Nodules! Get them while they’re uh, nodule shaped.
I read this a noodles I think its either time to get food or sleep 😭 cool video tho, the ocean floor is fascinating
I'm a Potter and grow these in my glazes. I have a black glaze that has 10‰ manganese dioxide and these nodules grow in the bucket to the size of small pebbles in a matter of years. The glaze is alkaline but slowly over time becomes more acidic. I wonder if that is encouraging deposition?
Recently there has been a new discovery concerning these manganese nodules. Apparently they can function as a natural battery, releasing oxygen. What kind of function this has for the broader seabed ecosystem is as of yet unknown.
They may form over millions of years, but there's a big problem with saying so definitively. It's an untested hypothesis. If someone can reproduce the formation of a manganese nodule over millions of years (good luck with that), then it would be a viable theory. Otherwise, it's still just guessing.
If these nodules contain those specific elements, then they definitely have influence on the Earth's magnetic field and should be left alone. There's only one group of people who would put that kind of a price on something that important.
SILENCE!
The only mining attempt im aware of is project azorian...
I guess miners should instead look for ancient ocean floors which have been uplifted due to plate tectonics.
I love molybdenum 👍🏼 can't live without it.
me too ! :)
In the 90s a friend in San Diego told me about these and actually had several. When you hit them with a hammer they heat up enough to feel by touch.
very cool
where's this info from? i call b.s thanks good video.
A guided scoop and a crane with a barge to deposit the ore liike a combine that shoots the harvest directly into the transport vehicle. At 4km depth yeah that could be a big problem as the profit margin goes down as the difficulty increases.
Ibe been fascinated by manganese nodules since i was a kid in the 90s and niw i wonder if i could buy one on ebay.
Interesting idea, I could do my economic minerals masters on this
"Environmental hazard"
Humans: "What's that?"
So what makes up the other 67 5% of the Nodule?
Please elaborate!!
"Because... a alien spacecraft hit the ocean at a billion miles an hour and exploded into cute little balls of rare earth metals :D" -history planet probably
The Nautilus Live channel has been seeing a lot of nodules and encrusting on their latest expedition to the Hawaiian region.
So if I had a machine that could bring up the nodules is there a commercially viable way of extracting the minerals out of them?
LOOKS LIKE WHAT CAME OUT MY KIDNEY
What irony that the cover story for the Glomar Explorer was to mine manganese modules but when it grabbed submarine K-129 off the ocean floor it was surrounded by manganese modules!
That's incredible ......they went from being economical to mine to not in the space of 5 minutes
Let’s send out the Hughes Glomar Explorer to harvest them.
Do you not think it would be a good idea to find out if they do anything to the water before removing them?