Our last day of science sampling and we are collecting water just above a site where we suspect there is low-temperature fluid flow at the seafloor 2.5km below the ship.   This is the site that in 1974 was named TAG after dredging hydrothermal deposits from the eastern rift-valley wall. I worked on these precious samples much later in the 1990’s and demonstrated that hydrothermal neodymium could be traced in these ferromanganese crusts demonstrating that they formed from low-temperature vent fluids rather than from seawater. We want to see what we can see in the deep water over this site and measure the input from the seafloor.

Over the last 38 days we have put our sampling rosette into the deep water 83 times and collected nearly 30,000 litres of seawater for processing, filtering, measuring and archiving. We have pumped over 45,000 litres of seawater through our deep sea cartridges to strip out natural radioactive isotopes that we use measure time in the deep sea. We have filled the container on the aft deck with over 100 crates of samples carefully wrapped for transport around the world to our labs in the UK, the US and elsewhere. Our physics team have made over 20 million measurements of turbulence through the water column and measured the plumes wafting through the deep waters in intricate detail.

We have steamed 4200 nautical miles since we left Southampton and have over 1000 to go to get to Guadaloupe. We have drunk over 7000 cups of coffee and eaten nearly a tonne of potatoes and over a 1000 rashers of bacon. We’ve hit the gym (perhaps because of the potatoes) and collectively rowed, run and cycled thousands of kilometres. We’ve played 350 games of cribbage, nearly 500 games of table football and some challenging games of darts when the ship is rolling.

All 52 people on the ship have worked (and played) really well together on this expedition – we have made new friends and close collaborations that will last a long time. On this long passage south to Guadaloupe we are drafting the ideas for the next proposals, practicing the talks for the big conferences coming up in 2018 and of course getting our fancy-dress costumes designed and made for the ‘RPC’.

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I have studied this hydrothermal site called TAG, nearly 4km below us on the seafloor, for nearly 30 years. First for my PhD, then on and off over the years. TAG is now one of the most well studied, deep-sea vent sites anywhere on the seafloor. The nations that explore the deep have mapped every square metre of the active hydrothermal mound, we have drilled deep beneath the seafloor into the stockwork that lies underneath the mineral deposit, we have mapped out the older inactive mounds littered over the rift valley floor, marking past sites of venting.

The International Seabed Authority has granted IFREMER (France) a 15-year exploration licence for a suite of 100, 10x10km blocks that include this area of the mid-ocean ridge. This remote and extremely deep mineral deposit is one of the largest in the Atlantic but I question whether mining will ever happen here despite the significant levels of copper, gold and other metals present right at the seafloor. We don’t know what the impact of extraction is on specialist vent fauna and the extreme depths and associated pressure makes operations extremely risky compared with shallower (or land-based) sites.

We are here to assess the impact of these vents on the wider ocean chemistry. To test how leaky they are – which metals, sulphide and other species are dispersed up into the water column and how far this enriched plume of essential micro-nutrients can be tracked into the deep ocean interior.

Our physics team track the hot buoyant fluid up over several hundred metres into the overlying water; zig-zagging the sampling frame through the plume to measure instabilities and mixing. We overlay the chemistry onto these physical observations to look at iron oxidation, sulphide complexation, particle exchange reactions and the fate of these elements. We repeat sample along the ridge; close to vents, far from vents to track the water as it disperses.

One of the most important elements of this work is the way we integrate our results into the global GEOTRACES programme – our measurements are made to the same rigorous protocols and carefully cross-calibrated so we can contour our data straight into the global database. We are looking forward to adding our piece of the puzzle to the global understanding of how the geology of the seafloor controls the chemistry of the ocean.

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We still ‘sail’ in rather larger science teams for much shorter periods of time. The rhythm of work on a ship and the lowering and hauling of wires is very familiar. We collect water samples in large bottles that can be closed remotely at depth and are arranged around an array of in situ sensors that give us real time data of ocean properties as we sit in the lab. The samples are recovered at awkward times of day and night – these samples need to be processed immediately to catch the helium atoms that escape out of the sample, the oxygen samples that are compromised as soon as the tap is opened, the microbial and chemical measurements of trace amounts of rare elements that we use to understand the scale and timing of ocean processes. We pump tonnes of water through cartridges to strip out radioactive isotopes that help determine the timescales in the deep ocean.

All this happens in slick sequence time and time again as we progress South along the volcanic ridge towards the subtropics. After a couple of weeks we are a great team – called on deck at odd hours to process samples under ultra-clean conditions, careful not to contaminate that water from the deep. Make decisions, move on South.

The key to effective work on the ship is of course how well this team works. You would all recognise the dynamics – the Captain is in charge of the ship – the Chief Scientist is in charge of the programme and together they make decisions every day to curtail a bit of this, cut a bit of that, move on if this isn’t working. The rest of the team are here to get the most out of this fantastic opportunity to track all the known volcanic vents in this region.

Ocean expeditions are fabulous training grounds for the next generation of scientists. We have an undergraduate student from California, a POGO funded postgraduate student from Malaysia, a whole group of PhD students from Southampton and Liverpool and the graduate students from collaborating labs in the US and France aboard. They work relentlessly round the clock and still have the energy to have fun – friendships made at sea last a lifetime.

The ship is a melting pot for people from all sorts of backgrounds, all sorts of experiences, all sorts of life stories and these are shared during the night shift over cups of Maeve’s espresso. The bridge calls down to point out those things that we can only really appreciate out here – dolphins on the starboard bow, alignment of Jupiter and Mars off the port deck.

The best part of being at sea is the freedom to focus on the task at hand and nothing more, nothing less. Time slows down, problems are solved, solutions are found, new data is stuck to the walls, new ideas forged as we each contribute to the picture emerging of plumes of metals wafted deep along the ridge. I love the rhythm of the days and nights – the sunsets and sunrises, the slow passing of time. We love the singularity of purpose.

The worst part is the severing of connections with home over the first few days and the vague feeling of institutionalisation and repetition that takes over after several weeks – all lifestyle decisions are out of your hand – what you eat, what you drink, when you sleep, when you do laundry, how you exercise, who you mix with.

The FRidge team is exceptional. I have made new friends, really cemented some work relationships and am looking forward to working with these great scientists over the next few years to get these samples measured and our new ideas out into the community and beyond.

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Following previous blog posts discussing the possible environmental impacts of seafloor mining at hydrothermal vents, and examining the UN International Seabed Authority, this blog post will look at who is investing in the company developing the first deep-sea vent mine.

Shares in Nautilus Minerals are traded on the Canadian Stock exchange, and the investment interests of major shareholders are represented by their nominated Non-Executive Directors on the Board of the company. This post will therefore piece together information about major shareholders, tracing their subsidiary and holding company relationships using information from publicly available sources.

We’ll also have a look at where contracts for technology and services relating to the planned Papua New Guinea operations have now been placed. As a result, this post will be quite heavily peppered with links to the sources of each piece of information, in an attempt just to bring together some facts.

“Joint Venture” agreement with Papua New Guinea

On 11 December 2014, Nautilus Minerals overcame the final hurdle in preparation for mining hydrothermal vents at Solwara-1 near the coast of Papua New Guinea. A promised investment of $113 million from the Papua New Guinea government was released from escrow to Nautilus, and a Joint Venture formally created between Nautilus Minerals and a company representing the Papua New Guinea government, to administer the deep-sea mining.

Under the terms of the Joint Venture agreement, 70% of profits from the deep-sea mining will go to Nautilus Minerals, and 30% will ultimately go to the government of Papua New Guinea.  So under those 30-70 terms of the Joint Venture agreement, for every $1 of profit that Nautilus receives from seafloor mining at Solwara-1, the government of Papua New Guinea will receive ~$0.42 on behalf of its 7.1 million people.

(At the moment, the deal is initially 85-15 in Nautilus’s favour; Papua New Guinea’s government has the option to increase its share to 30% if it makes further investment – but let’s assume 70-30, as the maximum that the government of Papua New Guinea will realise from the Joint Venture).

But where would that money go next, if Nautilus’s profits become dividends to its shareholder investors?

Major shareholders in Nautilus Minerals

Nautilus Minerals currently has three major shareholders (figures here are as of 5th October 2015): mining giant Anglo American Plc has a 5.99% stake; a company called Metalloinvest Holding (Cyprus) Ltd has a 20.89% stake; and another company called Manwarid Mining LLC now has a 28.14% stake.

The latter two are the start of chains that lead further afield: to Oman in the case of Manwarid Mining, and to a Russian oligarch and his billionaire associates in the case of Metalloinvest.

(click to enlarge)

To Russia with love

Metalloinvest Holdings (Cyprus) Holdings Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Metalloinvest JSC, which is in turn is a subsidiary of USM Holdings. USM Holdings is the company that manages the assets of one of Russia’s richest oligarchs, Alisher Usmanov. USM Holdings has three major shareholders: Alisher Usmanov himself owns 48% of stock, with other beneficiaries currently including Vladimir Skoch (30%) and Farhad Moshiri (10%).

Overall, these arrangements make Alisher Usmanov one of the the largest personal stakeholders in Nautilus Minerals. Indeed, his company Metalloinvest’s website lists Nautilus Minerals as an “auxilliary business”.

Alisher Usmanov lives in the UK (he owns Sutton Place in Surrey, previously a home of J. P. Getty) and made his fortune from plastic bags, cigarette imports, iron ore, telecoms and media. He currently owns a stake in Arsenal football club, and recently bought James Watson’s Nobel Prize medal at auction to return it to him.

Out of every $1 realised as dividends to Nautilus shareholders, Usmanov could personally receive up to $0.08 as gross income, before any taxes and costs are applied along the chain of companies leading to him.

The other two major shareholders in USM Holdings are Vladimir Skoch and Farhad Moshiri. Vladimir Skoch is the octogenarian father of pro-Putin politician Andrei Skoch, one of the richest members of Russia’s Duma parliament.

Being a member of the Duma prevents Andrei Skoch from holding any shares personally, but out of every $1 realised as dividends to Nautilus shareholders, his family could receive up to $0.05 gross.

Ardavan Farhad Moshiri is Chairman of the Board of Directors of USM Holdings, in which he also has a 10% shareholding for his service to Usmanov. Moshiri studied accountancy at University College London, and worked for several accountancy firms in the UK, where he came into contact with Usmanov before going to work for him.

Out of every $1 realised as dividends to Nautilus shareholders, Moshiri could receive up to $0.017 as gross income (based on information available about shareholding in the holding companies at the time of writing).

Moshiri has been a director representing Usmanov’s interests in many companies over the past ten years, including Non-Executive Director of Nautilus Minerals from 2007 to 2009. The current Non-Executive Director of Nautilus Minerals representing Metalloinvest’s interests is Mark Horn, a barrister and financial analyst who lives in the UK.

The Oman connection

Manwarid Mining LLC, which now holds a 28% stake in Nautilus Minerals, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MB Holding Company LLC. MB Holding LLC is based in Oman, and its billionaire founder and Chairman is Mohammed Al Barwani, who also currently serves as a Non-Executive Director of Nautilus Minerals.  MB Holding LLC has considerable subsidiary interests in the oil and gas sector, in addition to mining.

Coincidentally, the Omani oil sector in general has historic ties with China, having been the first Gulf state to supply the People’s Republic in the 1960s. But there is no suggestion of a link between Manwarid Mining or MB Holding and China.

Enter the dragon

So far we’ve looked at companies that are shareholders in Nautilus Minerals.  But who owns the contractors that are now providing technology or services relating to vent mining operations at Solwara-1?

The contract to build the deep-sea mining ship required by Nautilus has been placed with Fujian Mawei Shipbuilding Ltd in China (and a ceremony to mark the first steel-cutting in that project took place last week), via an intermediary company in Dubai.

Nautilus has signed an agreement for ore mined at Solwara-1 to be shipped for processing in China by Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Co. Ltd.

In early 2015 , a Chinese company also bought SMD Machines, a company based in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, who have the contract to design and build the seafloor mining machines that will be used at Solwara-1.

Mawei Shipbuilding, Tongling Nonferrous Metals, and China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (parent company of CSR Times Electric, which now owns SMD Machines in Newcastle) are all Chinese state-owned enterprises.  So China effectively now has a major interest in deep-sea mining at Solwara-1, through the contracts providing the production ship, seafloor machinery, and ore processing.

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Deep-sea hydrothermal vents are one of the seafloor environments now being targeted for mining of their mineral resources, because the “chimneys” that form at vents are particularly rich in metals such as copper that we need for modern technology.

But what are the possible impacts on marine life from mining at deep-sea vents?  For the first of three blog posts to accompany Week 6 of our “Massive Open Online Course” on “Exploring our oceans”, I’ll attempt a summary here, because the impact of greatest concern on marine life is perhaps not the most obvious.  And because it’s perhaps not obvious, this will be long article – starting with some key features of deep-sea vents, and what mining at vents will involve.

What are the key features of deep-sea vents?

Deep-sea vents are undersea hot springs, where mineral-rich fluid gushes out of the ocean floor.  On contact with cold, oxygenated seawater, the minerals in those hot fluids precipitate to build spire-like deposits called “vent chimneys”, and sometimes produce a “black smoke” of suspended particles that rises and disperses above the vents.

Deep-sea vents occur in “vent fields”, each of which is a collection of vent chimneys clustered together in a relatively small area.  Vent fields vary in size: some are just a couple of hundred metres across, while at others the vent chimneys can be spread over several kilometres.

Vent fields are separated from each other on the seafloor by relatively large distances where there is no vent activity.  In some regions, vent fields can be a few kilometres apart from each other, but in other regions it can be several hundred kilometres from one vent field to its nearest neighbour.  So overall, vent fields are rather like “islands”, dotted around the ocean floor, and varying in size and spacing.

The activity of each vent field does not last forever.  Depending on their geological setting, some vent fields may only be active for a few decades, before their fluid flow shuts down, for example if the area is smothered by lava flows from nearby undersea volcanoes, or if the “plumbing” beneath the vent field is disrupted by earthquake activity.  In other regions, however, a vent field can remain active for thousands of years – and go through cycles of activity, switching “on and off” for several millennia at a time.

So this is a key point that we will come back to later: deep-sea vents are not the same the world over.  Some are smaller in area than others, and some are naturally active for thousands of years.

At active vents, microbes thrive by using some of the dissolved minerals in the vent fluids as an energy source, in a process known as “chemosynthesis”.  These microbes in turn provide food for species of deep-sea animals, many of which are only found in such “chemosynthetic” islands of life on the ocean floor.

However, those animal species are never unique to an individual vent field, because if they were, they would go extinct when that vent field shuts down naturally.  The “vent” animals therefore have larval stages in their life cycles that are adapted for dispersal between vent fields, which allow them to avoid extinction despite the ultimately ephemeral nature of the colonies of their adult forms.

Although vent species are not unique to individual vent fields, however, they are specific to particular regions – one species, for example, may be found at vents along 3000 km of mid-ocean ridge, and then either geological or oceanographic barriers may isolate it from other species at vents in neighbouring regions.

So this is another key point that we will come back to later: vent fields are naturally ephemeral, and may be inhabited by species of animals only found at vent fields in a particular region, but never only at one individual vent field.

What is involved in mining at vents?

From plans already made by mining companies, “mineral extraction” will involve machines on the seafloor scraping up and pulverising the “seafloor massive sulfide” (SMS) deposits at a vent field, i.e. the vent chimneys and associated rubble around them.

This material will be pumped to a surface facility, where the metals will be extracted.  The remaining matter will be turned into a slurry, and in some cases may be pumped back down into the depths, to disperse from a pipe in mid-water and eventually settle across a wide area of the seafloor at very low concentration, similar to the fall-out from the natural plume of particles dispersing from the vents themselves.

What marine life will be most affected?

Now let’s think about the marine life that is likely to be most affected by mining at deep-sea vents.  Mining on land has an impact on local wildlife, but on land that wildlife usually occupies habitats much larger than just the area being mined.  So although some garden snails or earthworms may be killed by an excavation on land, that impact doesn’t usually cause concern, because those species are still common in unaffected areas.

So it is important to make a distinction between “normal” deep-sea animals that are found in extensive habitats beyond deep-sea vents, and “vent” animals that are only found in vent environments.

The plume of particle-laden waste water from seafloor mining could have an impact on “normal” deep-sea animals, for example suspension-feeding corals living on rocky seafloor away from the vents, or mid-water animals if the plume clouds the water (remember that many deep-sea animals still use light to communicate, hunt, and evade predators, even at depths beyond on the reach of sunlight).

But those kinds of animals usually have very wide distributions away from vents in the deep sea, so in terms of habitat loss or species extinction they are not particularly at risk from mining at vents; the impacts on them are similar to those on the garden snails and earthworms of our land-mining analogy.  The same applies to animals that may be affected by noise or other disturbance from mining activity, if their species have wide distributions and large populations beyond the impact area.

How will “vent” animals be affected?

But what about the impacts on the “vent” animals, which only live in vent environments?  The animals living on vent chimneys macerated by the mining machines will be killed.  But vent fields are naturally ephemeral features: when a vent field shuts down naturally, all the animals living there die out.  So mining, it is argued, simulates a natural disturbance process at an individual vent field.

In fact, mining does not “switch off” activity at a vent field; instead, it effectively resets the vent field to “time zero” in its natural development, by scraping the seafloor back to bare basalt with hot fluid still gushing out of it.  We know that the larvae of “vent” animals can recolonise that site from other vent fields in the region, because they did so when venting at that site first began (though how variable larval supply is, and whether a community will always follow the same pattern of development, is not yet known for vent fields in many regions).  And the chimneys grow back too (for example, we have seen chimneys grow several metres in a year between visits to some sites).

So on the face of it, mining at vents might seem an attractive proposition (and the word “sustainable” has even been used by some to describe it).  But as is often the case in the natural world, issues arise when we consider cumulative effects across a region, rather than individual sites.

What are the risks to “vent” animals from mining?

In the Western Pacific, where plans for mining at vents are arguably most advanced, most of the vent fields are associated with “back-arc spreading”, rather than being found on mid-ocean ridges.  These “back-arc” vent fields can be extensive, for example stretching over kilometres of seafloor in a ring around the summit of an underwater volcano.

At many of these “back-arc” vent fields, it is possible to mine just one part of the vent field, while creating “set-asides” or “reserves” within the same vent field or area, from which animals can recolonise the mined area afterwards.

That is exactly what mining company Nautilus Minerals proposes to do at the Solwara-1 vent field near Papua New Guinea, and they have worked extensively with scientists in the US to understand patterns of gene flow and thereby define what should be effective reserve areas as sources for recolonisation.

Looking at those plans as an independent observer, I think they will work in terms of mitigating the impact on “vent” animals.  The mined area should recover, with chimneys regrowing and “vent” animals recolonising them.

But – and it is a very big “but” – not all the vent fields on mid-ocean ridges are like the “back-arc” vent field of Solwara-1.  At mid-ocean ridges, would-be seafloor miners are targeting vent fields on “slower-spreading” ridges, such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and SW Indian Ridge.  Vent fields on a slower-spreading ridges are often much less extensive in size than “back-arc” vent fields such as Solwara-1, and each vent field on a slower-spreading ridge is typically active for several millennia.

The TAG hydrothermal mound on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, for example, is one of the largest known mid-ocean ridge sulfide deposits, but its main active mound is only ~200 metres across, unlike the chimneys spread over kilometres at Solwara-1.  And the TAG mound has been active for at least 20 000 years, in cycles of activity and inactivity each lasting 4000 to 5000 years, revealed by “geochronology” of its mineral deposits.

So at the smaller vent fields on mid-ocean ridges, it is not feasible to create “set-aside” or “reserve” areas within a vent field that is being mined: it will be “all-or-nothing” for that particular vent field, considering the footprint required for machinery on the seafloor.  And most importantly: the natural rate of vent-field-wide disturbance on slower-spreading ridges, to which their marine life may be adapted, seems to be once every few millennia.

What we don’t yet know on slower-spreading ridges is how rapidly a colony of “vent” animals develops from “time zero” to become identical to the well-established colonies that we have found so far.  We have not yet found a vent field close to “time zero” on a slower-spreading ridge: the ones we have seen so far have large mineral deposits, indicating that they have been active for some time, and their ecology has remained largely unchanged over the decades that scientists have been visiting them, unlike shorter-lived vent fields elsewhere in the world.  If early stage vent fields on slower-spreading ridges have a different ecology, then mining of several vent fields in a region could reduce the habitat available for species that only inhabit mature colonies.

So this the main impact of concern for “vent” animals: if mining “resets” vent fields in a region at a much higher rate than they “reset” naturally, then we could see overall habitat loss for some “vent” species particular to that region, and ultimately an increased extinction risk for those species as a result of our activities.  So what really matters will be the rate at which we disturb these systems by mining, across a region, compared with their natural rate of disturbance at vent-field scale, and the rate of response of animal colonies to such disturbances on slow-spreading mid-ocean ridges, which we don’t yet know at vent-field scale.

What can be done to reduce the risk of habitat loss and species extinction at vents on slow-spreading mid-ocean ridges?

The most obvious answer to that question is “not to mine those vents”; however, as I will discuss in a further post, the decision has already been made (on behalf of all of us, yet seemingly without us being asked).

If mining goes ahead at active vents on slow-spreading mid-ocean ridges, it is therefore essential that it is carefully controlled at a regional scale, for example identifying a network of vents in a region that must be conserved to ensure viable “metapopulations” of species to recolonise mined sites.  And it will take considerably more research and exploration to inform such an approach in each region.

There is also an alternative at this point: for every “active” vent field on a slow-spreading mid-ocean ridge, there are probably at least ten inactive vent fields, where venting has ceased naturally but where the vent chimneys have not yet been buried by sediments.  As venting has ceased at these sites, the “vent” animals have moved on – but the metal-rich mineral deposits remain.  So potentially, it might be possible to mine inactive vent fields on slow-spreading mid-ocean ridges without the impacts on “vent” animals that we have considered here.

(Recent research shows that marine life at inactive vents can still benefit from chemosynthesis at nearby active vents, but the species involved are “normal” deep-sea animals, typically with wide distributions beyond inactive vents, so they may be similar to the earthworms and snails of our land-mining analogy).

Inactive vent fields may be less attractive to would-be miners, however, because they are harder to find.  We find active vent fields thanks to the plume of mineral-rich fluids gushing out of them, but inactive vent fields lack those tell-tale signals.  But it could still be possible to restrict mining of vents on mid-ocean ridges in international waters to inactive sites.

Whatever the future, effective regulation will be essential for vent mining; and in my next post, we’ll take a look at the organisation that already exists to regulate vent mining in international waters. And then in the final post, we’ll also take a look at some of the investors and contractors involved in developing the world’s first deep-sea vent mine, in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea.

– Jon Copley (original post March 2014; updated October 2015)

Supplemental, July 2014:

Two further items relevant to this post, in recent weeks:

(1) At the Council of the United National International Seabed Authority (ISA; responsible for administering seafloor mining in international waters) in July 2014, the Netherlands submitted a note recommending that the ISA consider establishing regional environmental impact assessments before awarding any “exploitation” contracts for seafloor mining.  Such a measure, if eventually adopted by the ISA, could address the concerns about “cumulative” impacts of mining at deep-sea vents described here.  So let’s watch this space…

(2) Andrew Thaler and colleagues have recently published an analysis of how connected some populations of animals are between deep-sea vents (which Andrew discusses eloquently in a post here).  Surprisingly, their new study shows that  a “non-vent” animal (Munidopsis squat lobsters, found in lots of deep-sea environments other than just hydrothermal vents) shows greater genetic sub-division than populations of Chorocaris shrimp (which are only known from “chemosynthetic” environments such as deep-sea vents) among deep-sea vents in different areas.  So the assertion in the post above that we should be less concerned about mining impacts on “non-vent” animals, because they can live in areas away from vents, may not actually hold true in all cases…

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