In January, 1978 I left KISR, Kuwait
and traveled via Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
to Port Sudan, flying across the Red Sea.
To my surprise, I was greeted at the airport by a man
who asked me if I was "the Marine Geologist?"
Thinking that someone at KISR had arranged this pickup,
I acknowledged that I was a marine geologist and went along
in his car to the hotel where he told me I was to stay.
On the way, we talked about the Red Sea mud deposits and
Ocean Mining A.G. which was to explore the deeps where the
metalliferous muds had been discovered.
It was only apparent the next day that they were awaiting
a German marine geologist. But what with my Dutch accent
I did understand the error.
In my defense, I did at some time
work for
Ocean Science and Engineering,
the parent company of Ocean Mining, and furthermore, one of the WHOI scientists
who had co-authored "the" book about Red Sea muds was my fellow student
Dave Ross at Scripps....
Anyhow, I did visit some old ruins along the coast and took a
fantastic coral reef dive from the Cambridge platform in the Red Sea.
Prospects for mining polymetallic sulfides
Early activities in ocean mining of polymetallic sulfides were government sponsored. The German
company, Preussag, explored for seafloor sulfides until 1990 supported by large government subsidies.
The company, on behalf of the Red Sea Commission, systematically evaluated the Atlantis II Deep and
conducted trial mining of the metalliferous mud using a modified drill ship. Full mining was deemed
to be uneconomic. The Metal Mining Agency of Japan and associates carried out extensive seafloor
surveys in the exclusive economic zones of some Pacific island nations and elsewhere during the
1990s but did not pursue mining.
in:
Deep ocean mining:
S.D. Scott* (University of Toronto)
Department of Geology, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3B1, scottsd@geology.utoronto.ca
Silver from the Sea, 1982