Seabed mining
海底矿产

The unplumbed riches of the deep
来自深海的宝藏

 May 14th 2009 | WOODS HOLE, MASSACHUSETTS
From The Economist print edition

And why they’ll wait a while longer before being disturbed
开采这些宝藏，还需等多久

IN TEENSPEAK, if a star such as Madonna or J.Lo is huge, that is a reference not to her size but to her popularity. Similarly, in the world of seabed geology, if a sulphide deposit is massive, it is not necessarily big, but formless and rich in metals. As it happens, seafloor massive sulphides are also huge—at least they were until recently. The collapse in commodity prices last year has diminished them a bit, but many expect their popularity to recover.

按照青少年的话语，如果像麦当娜和詹妮弗.洛佩兹这些明星是巨星，并不是因为她的体格,而是因为她的知名度。同样，海底地质认为，如果硫化物矿床是巨大的，并不需要其体积大，只需其不定型和其金属含量高。碰巧的是，至少目前海底块状硫化物也是巨大的。虽然由于去年的物品价格暴跌已经使其减弱了很多，但大多数人估计其会反弹。

The excitement arose because oceanographers had started to find these mineral-rich deposits on the network of submerged mountain ranges that run along the seabed between continents (see map). Such ridges occur where the great plates of the Earth’s crust are spreading apart, and the seafloor holds formations of hot, volcanic rock.

令人喜悦的是，在大陆之间横卧在海底的山系里，海洋学家开始找到一些富含这些矿物的矿床（见地图）。这些山脉出现在地壳大板块离散的部位，此处的海底形成了热的火山岩石建造。

Ever since the dredges of HMS Challenger on her voyage of scientific discovery in the 1870s brought up from the depths “immense numbers of more or less circular nodules”, it has been known that lots of minerals lie on the seabed. However, most of these plum-sized objects—known as manganese nodules, though they contain several other metals—are several kilometres deep. Russia mines some in territorial waters in the Gulf of Finland and several other countries hold exploration licences, but bringing them to the surface has never become economic.

自从19世纪七十年代英国皇家海军的“挑战者”号科学考察船将深海大量大致成圆形的结核带出水面之后，人们知道有大量的矿产在海底。其中，李子般大小被称之锰结核的矿石大多数在几公里深处。俄罗斯矿业在芬兰海湾的领海内和其他几个国家都持有勘探证，但将这些矿物开采到地面上经济上还不具可行性。

In the 1960s, however, mineral deposits of a different kind were found in the Red Sea, where the spreading seafloor impels the slow separation of Africa and Arabia. A similar stretching takes place wherever two tectonic plates move apart, for example, in the Galápagos Rift off Ecuador, and it was here in 1977 that the first deep-sea hydrothermal vents were discovered. These vents form above cracks in volcanic areas of the ocean floor through which seawater seeps, there to be heated by hot, sometimes molten rock. The water dissolves minerals deep in the Earth’s crust before rising like a geyser from the seafloor at temperatures of up to 400°C.

然而，在20世纪60年代，在红海发现了一种不同类型的矿床。扩张的红海海底推动着非洲大陆与阿拉伯半岛缓慢地分离。其实，在两构造板块离散的部位都存在相似的海底扩张，例如厄瓜多尔附近的加拉帕戈斯裂谷。在此裂谷中发现了第一个深海热液通道。这些热液通道，位于海底火山区裂隙上部，由于海水渗透下去，然后被灼热或熔融的岩石加热。这些被加热的海水溶解深部地壳的矿物，最终上升至海底形成间歇泉，其温度高达400°C。

This mineral-laden fluid, if it is rich in iron and sulphur, emerges to create a plume of black “smoke”, from which, when it meets cold bottom water, the minerals are precipitated. Tall chimneys form, growing up to six metres (20 feet) a year, and around them live strange creatures: giant tubeworms, for instance, with neither mouth nor stomach nor anus, that live on microbes whose energy derives not from the sun but from chemical compounds in the fluids from the crust. Over time the chimneys collapse, creating the deposits of high-grade massive sulphides that so excite the deep-sea miners.

当含矿流体升至海底时遇到底部冷水，矿物发生沉淀。如果这些含矿流体富含铁和硫，则会冒出一缕缕黑“烟”。此时，高大的形成，其每年生长达6米（20英尺）。在烟囱周围生活着奇怪的生物。以巨管虫为例，它既没有嘴也没有肠胃与肛门。它赖以为生的微生物的能量不是来之太阳，而是来之地壳流体中的化学化合物。随着时间推移，烟囱坍塌，形成高品位块状硫化物矿床。这些矿床让深海矿业很感兴趣。

Hydrothermal vents of this kind are found roughly every 100km (54 nautical miles) along the 65,000km or so of mid-ocean ridge. They are also found in volcanic “back-arc” basins behind ocean trenches, where one tectonic plate is sliding beneath another. Many of these basins are in the western Pacific, part of a great “ring of fire” that runs in a horseshoe from New Zealand north through Indonesia, the Philippines and Japan, eastward through the Aleutian islands and then south along the Pacific coast of North and South America, encompassing most of the world’s active and dormant volcanoes.

沿着大约65000公里的洋中脊，大约每隔100公里（54海里）都会有此类热液通道。在海沟后侧的弧后盆地的火山中，此处是一个板块俯冲到另一板块的地方，也发现了该类通道，。很多这些盆地是在西太平洋：从新西兰向北到印度尼西亚、菲律宾和日本，然后向东到阿留申群岛，再向南沿着南、北美洲的太平洋沿岸。这一马蹄形火山链包括了世界上大多数活火山和休眠火山。

High-grade stuff, just sitting there
高品位矿石，静静等候在那儿

One reason massive-sulphide formations beguile miners is that the metals they contain—notably copper, gold, zinc and silver—are highly concentrated. Another is that they are often big, 200 metres wide and long, tens of metres thick, and may contain several million tonnes of ore. All lie on the surface of the seabed, and many are only 1-2km below water level.

块状硫化物岩层让矿业公司很感兴趣，原因之一就是，它们所含的金属品位高，如铜、金、锌和银等贵金属。另一个原因是，它们经常很大，长与宽达200多米，厚10米，可能蕴藏几百万吨铁。并且，所有的矿石在海底表面，许多在水面以下仅1到2千米。

At that depth technology developed for the offshore oil industry can nowadays be employed for mining. In particular, the deep-water pumps and suction pipes developed to bring subsea oil up to the surface can be used in the riser pipes needed to bring minerals (mixed with water) up from a massive-sulphide mine. The oil industry has also developed remotely-operated vehicles to make trenches for seabed pipelines, which can be adapted for cutting ore, even though it may lie much deeper, at, say, 1.5km down. In general the technology in the machines needed to carry out deep-water mining is no longer exotic. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has a vehicle that can reach depths of 11km.

现在，海洋石油工业的深海技术可以用于矿业。尤其是将石油从水下开采到地面所使用的石油深水泵和吸管可以用于矿业的升管中。此技术可以开采块状硫化物矿床中的矿物和水混合物。并且，石油工业已经开发出可用于海底管道挖槽的遥控船，可以经过改造用来切割矿石，即使这些矿石在1.5千米以下也没问题。一般而言，用于开采深水矿的技术不再遥远。伍兹霍尔海洋研究所开发的设备可以到达水下11千米。

Apart from the Russians, the only company mining the seabed at present is De Beers, which gathers diamonds off the coasts of Namibia and South Africa. These gem-quality stones were once carried down the Orange river and have since been swept up the coast, some even borne ashore by tide and wind. But they lie only about 100 metres down, so scooping them up is fairly simple.

除了俄罗斯之外，只有德比尔斯公司在海底采矿，它是在纳米比亚和南非海岸开采钻石。这些含宝石的岩石曾经顺着奥伦治河搬运到海岸，甚至有一些被海浪和风将其带上岸上。并且，大部分宝石仅在水下100米，因此寻找它们是相当简单的。

Two other companies have shown serious interest in seabed mining. One is Neptune Minerals, an Australian-based company that applied for a mining licence in 2008 for two deposits in about 1,250 metres of water near the Kermadec islands off New Zealand. It has also been granted exploration licences in territorial waters off Papua New Guinea, the Federated States of Micronesia and Vanuatu. But it is nowhere near mining commercially. The other company is Nautilus Minerals, a Canadian firm whose Solwara 1 project in Papua New Guinea’s territorial waters contains 60,000-100,000 tonnes of copper, and gold too. It was due to start production next year, but most operations are now on hold.

另外两家公司对海底矿产显出浓厚的兴趣。在2008年，澳大利亚矿业公司，在离新西兰不远的克马德克群岛群岛附近水下1250米的地方，申请了两处采矿证。在巴布亚新几内亚领海附近的密克罗西亚联邦和瓦努阿图，Neptune已经取得探矿证。但在经济上没有一处值得开采。另一家是加拿大Nautilus矿业公司，它在巴布亚新几内亚领海的索瓦拉一号工程蕴藏6万到10万吨铜和一些金。预期明年开始投产，但现在大多数运作近乎停滞。

Corbis
考比斯图片公司

Smoke without fire—just copper, zinc, gold and silver, and creatures unimaginable
无火之烟——只有铜、锌、金和银，与难以想象的生物

The big mining companies have been watching these two ventures with interest. Anglo American, one of the biggest, has an 11% holding in Nautilus (and 45% in De Beers), chiefly, it says, to keep abreast of the possibilities of seabed mining. But Chris Carlon of Anglo is emphatic that the world’s mining industry is not yet eager to tackle the deep ocean. For a start, there is a glut of copper, the metal that probably has to cover the cost of any massive-sulphide mine, leaving gold or some other more valuable metal to provide the profit. Last year the industry produced 360,000 tonnes of copper that turned out to be unwanted. Second, plenty of land-based deposits still remain to be exploited. Anglo American alone produces on land as much copper as the likely output of 100 massive-sulphide mines. As for gold, a tonne of old mobile phones contains about three times as much of it as a tonne of typical ore, even though recovery may be problematic.

矿业巨头们非常感兴趣地关注着这两家企业。英美矿业公司拥有Nautilus公司的11%股份，以及德比尔斯的45%，那就意味着其可以跟进海底矿业。但英美矿业公司的克里斯.卡隆非常强势地认为，世界矿业公司并未急迫地区开发深海。首先，巨量的铜就已收回任何块状硫化物矿的开发成本，剩下的金以及其他更贵的金属便可以产生利润。去年，海底矿业产出了36万吨铜，结果却无法销售。其次，大量陆地上的矿床仍然需要开采。英美公司仅仅在陆地上生产的铜可能相当于100个块状硫化物矿。至于金，一吨废旧手机含金数量是一吨普通金矿矿石的3倍，即使回收可能有问题。

Moreover, mining companies much prefer the known difficulties of operating on land to those of operating on the seabed. The risks of working in a place where volcanic activity seems to have stopped but may suddenly resume are uncertain. So indeed are the possible obligations to repair the underwater environment: no legal codes are yet in place for deep-sea mining. That helps to explain why the only places in which companies have dipped more than a toe in the water are in exclusive economic zones, which are not just shallower than many parts of the distant ocean but also within the legal ambit of a national authority.

此外，矿业公司更宁愿开发陆地上困难已知的矿，也不愿意开采海底矿产。因为存在很多不确定因素。工作的危险在于，此处的火山活动表面上已经停止，但可能会突然重新开始。虽然还没有关于深海矿业的法律法规，但更有可能需要承担修复水下环境的义务。这有助于理解为什么矿业公司只在经济专属区开展活动，那儿不仅比许多远洋地区深度较浅，更由于其在一个国家主权的法律范围内。

Seafloor mining beyond countries’ territorial waters is regulated by the International Seabed Authority, set up under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. So far it has issued only eight licences, all for exploration, not production, all for nodules, not massive-sulphide deposits, and all to governmental or quasi-governmental agencies (of China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and an east European consortium). No wonder. Commercial miners want both a clear title to their holding and exclusive rights to exploit it. They also have to answer to shareholders.

国际海底管理局监管那些不在领海之内的海底矿产。它是在联合国大会海洋法下设立的一个国际机构。但迄今为止，它仅仅签发了8个证，且全部是勘探证，而没有开采证；且全部是结核类的，而没有块状硫化矿；且全部是给政府或准政府的机构（中国、法国、德国、印度、日本、俄罗斯、南韩和一家东欧财团的）。不必奇怪，因为商业矿业需要明确的持有权以及专属的开采权。同时，他们还必须向股东解释清楚。

One day, however, deep-sea mining will surely start to look commercially attractive again. At present China and Russia are the two countries most interested in massive sulphides, followed by India and South Korea. Russia, which has been grubbing around on the seabed for years, knows exactly what it wants and where: it has found four massive-sulphide deposits of over 10m tonnes each in the past four years, all on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. China is less sure of what it is after, but has become interested in the southern Indian Ocean, as well as the zone in the North Pacific where most of the manganese-nodule licences have been granted. While China makes up its mind, it is blocking all decision-making at the International Seabed Authority, which was due to issue legal, environmental and revenue-sharing regulations about mining in international waters this month but is unlikely to do so. Fortunately, no miners are in a hurry to get started—and massive sulphides, unlike huge rock stars, can wait.

尽管如此，深海矿业在将来某一天肯定会开始变得在商业上很有吸引力的。目前，中国和俄罗斯对块状硫化物矿产最感兴趣的两个国家，随后的是印度和南韩。俄罗斯已经在海底搜寻很多年，明确知晓想要什么以及在那儿。在中大西洋脊，俄罗斯已发现四处块状硫化物矿床，并且每处都超过1千万吨。中国还不确定在寻找什么，但已对南印度洋感兴趣，还有北太平洋。大多数锰结核矿探矿证是在北太平洋。虽然中国已下定决心，但却阻扰国际海底管理局做决策。国际海底管理局预定本月将颁布关于国际水域矿产法律、环境和利益分配方面的规章制度，但现在可能性不大了。值得庆幸的是，没有任何矿业公司急匆匆地开始行动，且不像巨星那样，他们能够等待。

 

 

 

 

 《经济学人》（The Economist ( http://www.economist.com ))
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