General – Scientific Report
Global Sea Mineral Resources is pleased to announce the release of an independent scientific report entitled: The GSR Patania II Expedition: Technical Achievements and Scientific Learnings.
The report was authored by Thomas Peacock who is a Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Since 2018, GSR has collaborated with the MiningImpact2 (MI2) consortium, comprised of scientists from 29 European institutes and 9 different countries. MI2 scientists joined efforts with the German exploration contract holder, BGR (Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources) to independently monitor GSRs technology trials from a separate vessel, the MV Island Pride. In total, the two expeditions deployed around 200 individual monitoring instruments, hosted on 43 separate platforms.
The report summarises the key scientific findings to date of the Patania II pre-prototype nodule collector vehicle trial which took place on the abyssal Pacific Ocean floor in April and May 2021.
Professor Peacock, said: “The expeditions represent a landmark study in the history of deep-seabed mining. This collaboration between industry and independent scientists resulted in unprecedented and transparent monitoring of realistic seabed nodule collector technology on the abyssal plains of the Clarion Clipperton Zone.”
This report will be presented during a side event at the International Seabed Authority on 23rd of March 2023.
