New Research Shows How Seabed Mining Disrupts the Food Web
Scientists analyzed data from a test mining operation to document threats to small marine organisms key to the health of commercially valuable seafood like tuna.
A bin of yellowfin tuna at a seafood company in San Diego, California.
Photographer: Sam Hodgson/Bloomberg
As the US moves to license deep sea mining, new research finds that extracting critical metals from the seabed generates waste that endangers tiny marine organisms that form the basis of a vast food web. The impacts have the potential to disrupt commercial fisheries and what lands on dinner plates.
In the first-of-its-kind study published Thursday in Nature Communications, scientists analyzed data from a 2022 test mining operation conducted by The Metals Company (TMC) in the Pacific Ocean. TMC in April applied for a license from the Trump administration to mine the same area of the ocean, which is controlled by a United Nations-affiliated organization.