Mining the Ocean Floors

Another potentially abundant ronote source of minerals is the ocean floor, which remains largely unexplored to this day. Compared to space exploration, only small amounts of money and time have been devoted to the exploration of the ocean floor. Despite their vast unrealized potential as a source of natural capital, relatively little has been done to take advantage of ocean-floor resources. 

Large areas of the ocean are covered with manganese-rich lumps called manganese nodules. In addition to manganese, these lumps also contain otha metals, including valuable platinum, coppa, and nickel. Extraction of these metals as by-products adds to the economic attractiveness of mining manganese nodules. 

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