Sea Floor Smoker Minerals Analysis

Companies have been attempting to recover manganese nodules containing cobalt and nickel from the abyss for many years.

Sea floor smoker minerals analysis.

With white smokers are dominated by sulphate minerals that form at lower temperatures 300 150 c. Seafloor photographs varying altitude of the camera system due to continuous motion and partial burial of minerals such as nodules and crusts under sediments hinder the formulation of standard analytical procedures for evaluating seafloor photographs and stress the need for user defined parameters while analysing each photograph. Hydrothermal vents exist along mid ocean ridge spreading centers extensional systems associated with subduction zones volcanoes and intraplate hotspots. Seafloor massive sulphides deposits in papua new guinea manganese nodules in the cook islands and cobalt rich crusts in the republic of marshall islands.

Meta analysis of 29 published cross sectional studies reporting the difference in bone density in 2156 smokers and 9705 non smokers according to age and of 19 cohort and case control studies recording 3889 hip fractures reporting risk. Magnesium and sulfate poor hydrothermal fluids that exit black smoker and white smoker chimneys are formed through interactions of seawater with oceanic crust. To determine the magnitude and importance of the relation between smoking bone mineral density and risk of hip fracture according to age. The seafloor contains deposits of minerals that we use in everyday life such as copper zinc nickel gold silver and phosphorus.

Generation of seafloor hydrothermal vent fluids. High temperature to 400 c metal and sulfide rich hydrothermal solutions discharge precipitating clouds of metallic mineral particles at black smoker vents. Generation of seafloor hydrothermal vent fluids and associated mineral deposits margaret kingston tivey. Unlike deepsea mining of crust or seafloor massive sulphides nodules sit semi submerged on the seafloor and therefore do not require intensive mining.

A wide variety of minerals form through hydrothermal activity but seafloor massive sulfides are formed from reduced sulfur and may be enriched in copper zinc iron gold and silver. Seafloor sulphides underwater mining is not a new concept. The first hydrothermal mineral deposit was found in the 1960s in the northern red sea where sea floor spreading separates africa from the saudi arabian peninsula. Since this type of mining has yet to occur anywhere in the world the analyses are based on realistic yet hypothetical mining scenarios developed for three mineral deposits thought to have a high potential for economic viability.

What the industry is now focusing on however is extracting seafloor massive sulphides sms contained in black smokers a type of hydrothermal vent.