The Scramble for the Seabed

Thousands of metres beneath the surface, vast fields of polymetallic nodules, rich in nickel, cobalt, manganese and copper, lie scattered across the seabed. These minerals are critical to batteries, renewable energy systems and the technologies driving the global energy transition. For some governments and companies, deep-sea mining represents a strategic and financial opportunity: a way to secure supply chains and reduce dependence on terrestrial mining.

But the abyssal plains are also one of the least understood ecosystems on Earth.

Scientists warn that mining operations could disturb habitats that have taken millions of years to form, with unknown consequences for deep-sea biodiversity and the ocean’s wider ecological systems. Recovery, they argue, could take centuries, if it happens at all. At the same time, regulators and governments are racing to establish rules that would allow commercial extraction to begin.

Who and what decides whether the seabed is mined?

What do we know…