India wants to dig deep into metal-rich Indian Ocean seabed. All about deep-sea mining

India wants to dig deep into metal-rich Indian Ocean seabed. All about deep-sea mining

Bengaluru: Indian delegates have been visiting the International Seabed Authority (ISA), Jamaica to strengthen efforts to explore two deep sea regions in the Indian Ocean for mining, according to reports this week.

This comes after India’s application to the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in January, with a final decision expected later this year.

New Delhi is exploring obtaining rights to mine a metal-rich region, the Carlsberg Ridge, located away from India’s western shores, and a cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts in deep seabed region, Afanasy-Nikitin Seamount (ANS), located away from the eastern shores, both in the vast Indian Ocean.

ThePrint explains what the regions are and why India is interested in mining the deep seabed there.

Why ISA?

At present, the maritime borders of any coastal country extends to 200 nautical miles beyond its coast. All other waters are considered international maritime waters on which no country can stake territory, or claim air, water, or sea bed resources.

As a result, exploration and mining in these regions requires permission from the international body ISA, an independent and autonomous international organisation established under the United Nations.

Thus the Carlsberg Ridge requires a permit from ISA, as does the ANS exploration.

However, the ANS region is technically and legally contentious due to the geopolitical definition of what constitutes a country’s coastal boundary. Typically, the edge of the coastal boundary leads into a continental shelf, a vast stretch of extension of land below the ocean, going up to 350 nautical miles from the coast.

This has led Sri Lanka to claim the Seamount as its own territory, because countries in the Bay of Bengal region can utilise a different set of criteria that allows a claim of up to 500 nautical miles.

Carlsberg Ridge

The first application was for a region between Africa and India known as the Carlsberg Ridge. It is the northern part of the Central Indian Ridge, a tectonic plate boundary between the African and Indian plates, running along the ocean between India and Africa. It was formed nearly 30 million years ago, and has been seismically active with major earthquakes.

Running along Seychelles and spanning 3,00,000 sq kms, the Carlsberg Ridge is rich in polymetallic nodules — meaning, it contains mineral deposits with commercially viable quantities of at least 3 metals. The ridge is thought to contain trace elements of copper, lead, and zinc.

Polymetallic nodules occur in lumps in the seabed of tectonically active regions, around volcanoes and hydrothermal vents. When emitted from hydrothermal vents or bursts of hot water released from cracks deep in the ocean rocks, these metals occur as sulphides that are rich in gold and silver, as well as manganese, zinc, and cobalt.

Today, copper mining occurs in Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has led to forced displacement and human rights violations. Lead mining occurs in Zambia which has led to large-scale toxic lead pollution in the country, and other mined metals like zinc, gold, silver, manganese, lithium, aluminium, and others, which are vital for electronics and for green transition, have also been associated with human rights and environmental violations across the world.

The ANS seabed

The ANS is a major structural feature in the Indian Ocean, rising up above the sea bed but below the surface, and forming a seamount. It is 400 km long and 150 km wide, and is located in the Central Indian Basin — southeast to Sri Lanka, right below the equator, to the west of Singapore — and it was formed about 80 million years ago, while dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.

The Seamount is named after Afanasy Nikitin, a 15th century Russian merchant who was one of the first to document his travels to India. A black monolith is also erected in his honour at Revdanda, about a 100 km away from Mumbai, where he is thought to have first set foot in the country.

The ANS seamount is about 3,000 km from India’s coast, and is rich in cobalt, copper, manganese, and nickel.

Cobalt is in high demand among other metals due to its ubiquitous use in electronics and batteries. It is used to make solar and wind power infrastructure as well. Cobalt mining has been associated with famine and human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which extracts over 3/4th of the metal in use today, among other places.

Nickel is used in electric vehicles as it is resistant to corrosion and oxidation. Manganese is also used for lithium ion and alkaline batteries, while copper is one of the most commonly used metals in electricity.

What is the present status? 

The applications were submitted in January, and have been evaluated this month. For the ANS region, the Commission has sought clarifications from India. A final decision is expected later this year.

Reports indicate that high-level Indian officials from the Ministry of Earth Sciences had visited Jamaica to solidify its appeal to ISA for exploration of ANS and the Calsberg Ridge (or, Indian Ocean ridge)

Currently, the Indian government has obtained permits and contracts from ISA for two regions of exploration in the Indian Ocean. The first is for exploration for polymetallic nodules in the Central Indian Ocean Basin. It was signed 25 March 2002, extended in 2017 and 2022, and will expire on 24 March 2027.

The second exploration contract is for polymetallic sulphides in the Indian Ocean Ridge. It was signed 26 September 2016 between ISA and India, and will expire on 25 September 2031.

Deep-sea mining

While deep sea mining is considered to likely become a more commercially viable alternative to land mining, experts also worry about irreversible and large scale changes to marine ecosystems and life in the future.

The deep seabed across the world is littered with rich deposits of metals used today for solar panels, electric cars, power plants, and more. Proponents of deep sea mining cite the deposits as a factor that would enable rapid transition to green energy.

However, researchers and marine biologists have expressed concern about mining in the deep sea destroying ecosystems and sensitive species like corals, sea cucumbers, squids, and more.

Simultaneously, deep sea extraction would release plumes of toxic materials that would travel up the water column, poisoning the food chain with toxic metals, say scientists.

Mining in the dark ocean floor, where pressure will be nearly 500 times greater than that on the land, requires large powered structures underground, robotic bulldozers to dredge up the sea bed, mechanisms to carry heavy sediments high to the surface, and mega-sized surface ships to carry metal ore.

Famed naturalist David Attenborough has called for a moratorium on all deep-sea mining, stating that “mining means destruction”, and here, will be of “an ecosystem about which we know pathetically little”.

Polymetallic nodules, for example, are the only hard solid substrates on the sea bed for several hundreds of kilometers, as the water moves and loosens the fine sediments on the plain of the sea bed. These are thought to be critically important attachment points for creatures that can’t live in mud.

Recent reports have shown that creatures like sponges, corals, worms and nematodes, sea anemones, and even water bears or tardigrades, as well as octopuses and squids, lay eggs in structures like sponges that are attached to these nodules. Researchers say that the diversity of animals in the sedimentary layer of the sea is extremely high.

The lack of water currents deep in the ocean floor also means that dredging of the sea bed will spread mud and sediment across the waters, choking animals that cannot move away from the sea bed.

The tiny island of Nauru, one of ISA’s 167 member states, has recently activated a sub-clause in a UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, that allows mining companies to proceed with deep sea mining if ISA takes over two years to negotiate contracts. The island is at high risk of drowning, has partnered with a mining company, citing fears of rising ocean levels and need for immediate transition to green energy.

Currently, ISA has 31 active exploration contracts with multiple countries. At the moment, no country has obtained a permit to commercially extract resources from international waters.

(Edited by Tony Rai)