Community | May 16, 2009 | 4 comments

Mining the Sea Floor

source: http://discovermagazine.com/2009/may/04-can-giant-robots-successfully-mine-the-mile-deep-sea...

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csmonut
Fortunately, this operation has been put on hold because the economy tanked. However...what happens when it picks up again? Are we going to allow corporations, large and small to destroy a part of our planet we know so little about?

From the article:
The company will, of course, leave behind a damaged seafloor—but the environmental costs, too, will be less, Nautilus insists, than those of a comparable mine on land.
In strip-mining a bit less than 30 acres of seafloor, Nautilus will consume hydrothermal chimneys and wipe out the clusters of snails and barnacles, crab and shrimp that are nourished by their sulfide emanations."

This only addresses the immediate sea life. What about all of the other life that depends on this volcanic vent?
I sincerely hope this operation, and others like it never come to fruition. Obviously man has learned so little and could care less, for this this planet that sustains us.
She's going to get pissed off one of these days and scratch at us as we have scratched at her.
And that will be the end of humankind.
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    Environment,  Sea Life,  sea floor,  mining operations
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4 comments // Mining the Sea Floor

  • desertcat
    • 0
      desertcat  

    • It's not going to stop. There are too many of them and not enough of us. Our voices are the lonely coyote on the range, some find music in it others noise. As long as we worship the holy dollar and all the thing you can get with it, the planet will suffer. Back in the early 70's they knew what damage Agent Orange can do, they outlaw its use in the US but used it in the war with Vietnam. War over chemicals still abound so they sell to third world nations. Mother Earth is getting pissed and I sure hope that when she blows her top I am not here. Mining the sea is a stupid idea but how do you stop them. I read a book once where the "Greens" started paying the polluters back. They take those who spill chemicals into the rivers and dump them into swimming pools filled with the waste and etc to others. Maybe the only way we are going to save the world is to become green terrorists. Nothing else seems to work, And don't go sending your undercover police to check me out, if I were able to walk and younger then you may have to worry.

    • 2 years ago
  • jubal
  • csmonut
  • pjacobs51
    • 0
      pjacobs51  

    • "The company will, of course, leave behind a damaged seafloor—but the environmental costs, too, will be less, Nautilus insists, than those of a comparable mine on land."

      I say bullshit to this statement. Just because it's out of site, it's not out of mind. It will have a disastrous effect on the entire food chain of the ocean inhabitants.

    • 2 years ago
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