The underwater Jurassic park the size of Australia that threatens the electric vehicle
Worms, crabs, sea cucumbers, carnivorous sponges and others that look like glass chandeliers guard an underwater treasure between Hawaii and Mexico that has become one of the great dilemmas in the history of humanity.. The future of green energy rests on a continent of polymetallic nodules the size of Australia, reached after submerging to a depth of 40 football fields, and resembling a bed of charred potatoes.. Each potato is made up of four essential metals for car batteries, mobile phones, solar panels and almost everything else needed to transition society to renewable energy: 0.2% cobalt, 1.3% nickel , 1.1% copper and 28% manganese.
It is estimated to be the largest deposit of nickel, manganese and cobalt on the planet. The mining industry wants to get their hands on it, but it is currently prohibited in areas beyond national jurisdiction, although you can explore its wealth. The International Seabed Authority (ISA), made up of 167 countries, including Spain, and created to regulate exploitation, undertook to first find out what kind of creatures survive in the depths of the so-called Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), between the Mexican Clarion Island and the French Clipperton Island, in the dark, with temperatures of minus 2 degrees Celsius and at a pressure 400 times greater than on the earth's surface.
now you know. A latest investigation published in the journal Current Biology gives the first data of something similar to another planet, or at least to a planet Earth hitherto unknown to science.. In this Jurassic territory, since each polymetal nodule grows just a few millimeters every million years, 5,578 different species inhabit among hills, valleys, steep walls, mountains, craters, and volcanic calderas.. Between 88% and 92% were unknown to science until now.
“We share this planet with all this incredible biodiversity, and we have a responsibility to understand and protect it,” says Muriel Rabone, an ecologist and analyst in the Deep Sea Research Group at the Natural History Museum in London, UK, whose work has been in uniting all the species records made in the area since the mining companies discovered it in the 1960s.
Muriel Rabone, ecologist and deep-sea analyst with some specimens from the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ).
The announcement comes just when the mining company expected to receive the first authorizations this July, start working in 2024, and start removing the nodules in 2027.. It is believed that in the CCZ there could be some 27,000 million tons of nodules, which would supply the planet with the copper it will need for the next 30 years.. The problem is that the ecosystem of these more than 5,000 species is connected to the nodules. Sponges and anemones need them to live, and observations show that there are more fish, larger and more diverse where there are more nodules.
Of the six million square kilometers of the CCZ, 1.2 million are already affected by 17 contracts for mineral exploration. “We need to know what lives in these regions before we can begin to understand how to protect those ecosystems (…). It is imperative that we work with companies seeking to exploit these resources to ensure that such activity is carried out in a way that limits its impact on the natural world,” said study co-author Adrian Glover, a Research Fellow at the Natural History Museum in London. .
The researchers navigated the area, sending remote-controlled vehicles or simple box dredges that landed on the bottoms.. “It was incredible, in each sample we saw new species,” says Rabone. So up to 100,000 records. “There are some extraordinary specimens down there. Some of the sponges look like classic bath sponges and others look like vases.. they are just beautiful. One of my favorites are glass sponges. They have small spines that under the microscope look like sculptures or tiny candlesticks,” explains Rabone.
Most of the recorded specimens were arthropods such as shrimp or crabs, and groups of annelids and nematodes that include various worms.. “But we still predict that there are between 6,000 and 8,000 more unknown animal species in the CCZ, which means that around 90% are not known to science,” says the researcher.
Sea anemone from the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ).
The deep ocean located below 200 meters is the largest habitat for life on Earth and the most difficult to access. CCZ remains one of the few remaining areas of the ocean with largely intact wilderness due to the extreme conditions of the deep.. “We must take into account that the percentage of species not described here is similar to that recorded for the global ocean,” he explains.
The study also revealed that some regions of the CCZ have barely been studied, especially rock outcrops where unique communities are already known to occur.
As mining operations in the area could be imminent, the use of biological data for environmental management has become more important than ever, the study underlines.. In 2022, more than 10 million electric cars were sold worldwide and sales this year are expected to reach 14 million, which will represent 18% of the total vehicle fleet.. According to the latest report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), Global EV, the electrification of vehicles will prevent the consumption of five million barrels of oil per day by the year 2030.
However, many technology and car companies have publicly committed not to use minerals from the seabed, such as BMW, Volkswagen, Volvo, Google or Samsung.