Mining on the ocean floor could cause irreversible damage to marine life, a study has found.
Commercial seabed mining for precious metals is due to start next year in the waters off Papua New Guinea using machines built in Britain. Dozens of companies are hoping to exploit rich deposits of copper, gold, silver and the rare metals needed for smartphones and other electronic equipment.
Researchers from the University of Exeter and Greenpeace have said that such activity could have “long-lasting and unforeseen consequences”. Their study, published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, found that the mining could involve extracting minerals over a large area of seabed rather than digging down at confined sites. It could create underwater plumes of sediment and disturb fragile ecosystems with chemical, noise and light pollution.
“Our knowledge of these ecosystems is still limited but we know they’re very sensitive,” David Santillo, a marine biologist and Greenpeace scientist, said. “Recovery from man-made disturbance could take decades, centuries or millennia, if these ecosystems recover at all.”
Article Source: The Times.co.uk