The chemical-rich waters that sustain life also make these environments an attractive target for deep-sea mining. When the chemicals that come out of the earth’s crust meet the cold seawater, they precipitate and create chimney-like deposits on the seabed, called seafloor massive sulphides.
“These chimneys contain a high quality and quantity of gold, silver, copper and other rare earth minerals that we need to feed our technology-hungry society,” Otis Brunner, first author of the study, said in a media statement.
Brunner pointed out that, despite the abundance of minerals and metals in such deposits, resource extraction destroys the creatures living there, and severely impacts those on nearby chimneys within the same hydrothermal vent site.
“Each hydrothermal vent often hosts some endemic species, meaning they only live there. So if you remove or severely damage their ecosystem, not only have you lost those animals, but…
