Research Spotlight: “Exploration and Evaluation of Deep-Sea Mining Sites”
iMAGE-CREATE PhD. Student, Christopher Galley (uOttawa, Memorial University) has been featured in a research spotlight article by Eos, a science news media by the American Geophysical Union (AGU; Sidder, A, 2022. Published on 14 February 2022¹). The article, titled “Exploration and Evaluation of Deep-Sea Mining Sites”, highlights two recent research studies surrounding the evolving deep-sea mining industry.
The second half of this article focuses on Christopher Galleys recent work (Galley et al., 2021²) on the Trans-Atlantic Geotraverse (TAG) active mound at ~26° N on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. In this study, he uses combined magnetic and gravity data to construct 3D models of the active hydrothermal mound, allowing the thickness of the deposit and extent of hydrothermal alteration to be resolved. From this, Christopher was able to update the tonnage estimate of the active TAG mound to 2.17 ± 0.44 Mt.
Aaron Sidder, author of the Eos research spotlight articles writes, “The two studies are a significant step forward in identifying and characterizing active and inactive hydrothermal mounds on the seafloor. The findings move seafloor mining toward cost-effective exploration and assessment of currently undeveloped mineral resources, with a focus on exploiting the hydrothermally inactive deposit to minimize negative environmental impacts.”
To view the research spotlight article, as well as Christophers research paper on this topic, please refer to the two citations below.
¹ Sidder, A. (2022), Exploration and evaluation of deep-sea mining sites, Eos, 103, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EO220083. Published on 14 February 2022
² Galley, C., Lelievre, P., Haroon, A., Graber, S., Jamieson, J., Szitkar, F., … & Evans, R. (2021). Magnetic and gravity surface geometry inverse modeling of the TAG active mound. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 126(10), e2021JB022228. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JB022228.
