Conservationists say retrieving mineral-rich rocks will destroy sea life. Environmental studies show conflicting results.

The thing that people have missed is that there is zero chance that this will not happen,” Gerard Barron, CEO of The Metals ...

Along certain parts of the ocean floor lies a bounty of rare minerals and metals ... until now really been entirely untapped is at the bottom of the ocean. As you detailed in your stories for ...

The deep sea refers to the part of the ocean below 200 meters (656 ft.), at which light begins to disappear. Despite making up more than 90% of the Earth’s marine environment, much of the deep-sea ...

In 1982, geologist Martin Hovland sat aboard a research ship owned by the Norwegian oil company Statoil (now Equinor) in the ...

which controls the supply of many critical minerals. To retrieve the nodules, mining firms plan to send uncrewed collector vehicles down to the bottom of the ocean. The Metals Company vehicle ...

To the surprise of all, scientists have found bits of space buried beneath the waves. At the bottom of the ocean, evidence of what researchers are calling a “supernova graveyard” has been ...

The ocean's deep-sea bed is scattered with ancient rocks, each about the size of a closed fist, called "polymetallic nodules." Elsewhere, along active and inactive hydrothermal vents and the deep ...

This story is part of the Grist series Unearthed: The Mining Issue, which examines the global race to extract critical minerals for ... At the bottom of the sea, the ground has barely been ...

These minerals are hard to obtain ... but can be found in abundance right on top of the ocean floor. The problem is that the bottom of the sea isn’t one uniform environment but has its own ...

Plutonium discovered at the bottom of the ocean was found to be refuse from a kilonova that exploded close to Earth 10 million years ago. Kilonovas occur when binary neutron stars spiral closer ...