July 3, 2025 — Deep-sea mining could impact marine life stretching from the tiniest bottom dwellers to apex predators like swordfish and sharks, a major piece of industry-funded research found Thursday.
The Metals Company—a leading deep-sea mining firm—paid Australia’s government science agency to pore through data collected during test mining in the remote Pacific Ocean.
Huge tracts of Pacific Ocean seabed are carpeted in polymetallic nodules, bulbous lumps of rock that are rich in metals used in battery production—such as cobalt and nickel.
The Metals Company is pushing to be the first to mine these nodules in international waters, striving to exploit a remote expanse known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
Australia’s government science agency released a series of technical reports on Thursday detailing how mining could be managed.
Bottom-dwellers such as sea cucumbers, marine worms, starfish and crustaceans could see “significant declines in abundance immediately following mining,” research found.