Desires Deeper Than the Deep Sea: What We Are Losing
Hyelyn Kim, Head of Resource Conservation Division, Climate Ocean Research Institute (CORI)
The deep sea—where bioluminescent creatures dance in the endless twilight—is humanity’s final frontier of the unknown. Life here has evolved in ways entirely different from life on land. At depths commonly referred to as “deep sea”—around 200 meters—sunlight rapidly diminishes, making photosynthesis nearly impossible. Below this depth, light vanishes entirely, giving way to extreme pressure, low temperatures, and minimal oxygen. As a result, the deep sea remains a largely untouched and scientifically underexplored realm.
Yet, buried in this extreme ecosystem are the very resources modern society covets. Over millions of years, metal ions have accumulated in seabed sediments to form polymetallic nodules rich in manganese, nickel, cobalt, and copper. Demand for these metals is soaring across cutting-edge industries such as digital technology, renewable energy, power storage, space exploration, and defense. Olivier Vidal of the French National Centre for Scientific Research has warned that, at the current rate of consumption, humanity will use more metals by 2050 than it has throughout its entire history. Similarly, the World Bank projects that the production of minerals like graphite and cobalt will increase by over 500% by mid-century.
Mining on land is already widespread, but it brings severe consequences: deforestation, water pollution, biodiversity loss, greenhouse gas emissions, and human rights violations. In Indonesia, nickel mining is accelerating forest destruction. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, toxic exposure from cobalt extraction has led to numerous health issues among local communities. Furthermore, China’s near-monopoly—processing over 90% of rare metals and rare earth elements—has heightened concerns about the limitations of terrestrial mining. Against this backdrop, the global gaze is now turning toward the deep sea.
Deep-sea mining of polymetallic nodules typically involves tractor-like collectors that vacuum sediments from the seabed and transfer them to surface vessels. This process stirs up sediment plumes, alters fluid dynamics, and generates underwater noise—disrupting fragile ecosystems. Deep-sea plains are densely populated by species that cannot relocate, and recovery is extremely slow—making the damage potentially irreversible.
A 1989 experiment by Germany in the Peru Basin of the South Pacific found that, even after 26 years, the deep-sea environment had not recovered from artificial disturbance. Microbial activity declined by up to fourfold, and suspension-feeding animal populations dropped significantly. Species like certain octopuses, which lay eggs on sponges and rely on polymetallic nodules for habitat, could face population collapse if their living structures are compromised. Such disturbances are predicted to inflict long-term, possibly irreversible, damage to ecosystem functions.
In April, former U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at achieving strategic mineral self-sufficiency—including deep-sea mining in international waters—and instructed the Department of Commerce and the Department of the Interior to develop related capabilities. In response, Canadian firm The Metals Company (TMC) applied for exploration and mining permits under U.S. jurisdiction. While TMC claims its operations will minimize environmental impact, many in the international community have raised concerns that bypassing the International Seabed Authority (ISA) could undermine ongoing multilateral rulemaking efforts. Meanwhile, Norway passed legislation in early 2024 to permit deep-sea mining in its Arctic waters. These developments indicate a growing global push to commodify even the Earth’s final frontier.
At this critical juncture, we must ask ourselves: What kind of society are we building at the cost of the deep sea—one of Earth’s last great mysteries? If human ambition continues to cross every boundary, what we may gain could be abundance in appearance only—while what we stand to lose is the irreplaceable foundation of life itself.
※ This article was originally published in The Kyunghyang Shinmun.
Read the original Korean article