The Mineral Resources of the Sea

319 Pages·1965·8.462 MB·iii-ix, 1-312\319

by  John L. Mero (Eds.)

THE MINERAL RESOURCES
OF THE SEA
BY
JOHN L. MERO
Consultant
Newport News Shipbuilding and Dr_y Dock Co.
Newport News, Va.
Former4 with the
Institute of Marine Resources
Department of Mineral' Technology
Universig of Cal;fornia
Berkelq, CalzJ
ELSEVIER PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM - LONDON - NEW YORK
I96j
ELSEVIER PUBLISHING COMPANY
335 JAN VAN GALENSTRAAT, P.O. BOX 211, AMSTERDAM
AMERICAN ELSEVIER PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.
52 VANDERBILT AVENUE, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10017
ELSEVIER PUBLISHING COMPANY LIMITED
I ZB, RIPPLESIDE COMMERCIAL ESTATE
RIPPLE ROAD, BARKING, ESSEX
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 64-18 5 20
WITH 74 ILLUSTRATIONS AND 43 TABLES
COPYRIGHT 0 1964 BY ELSEVIER PUBLISHING COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
FOR HOPE, ANNE AND LAWRENCE
PREFACE
In the fall of 1957, several professors of the University of California
met at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to plan a cooperative
program between two University organizations, the Department of
Mineral Technology at Berkeley and the Institute of Marine Resources
at San Diego, on the recovery of minerals from the sea. They were
Professors P. D. Trask, H. E. Hawkes, and P. E. Witherspoon of
Berkeley and Professors C. D. Wheelock and M. H. Menard of San
Diego. As a first project they chose an economic analysis of mining
ocean-floor manganese nodules. I was asked to be the chief investiga-
tor on this project under the faculty guidance of Professor H. E.
Hawkes. Out of that study came a report on the mining and processing
of manganese nodules which definitely indicated the technical and
economic feasibility of using this material as a source of various
metals. In the course of that study, we learned about a number of
other materials on the ocean floor that might be of economic interest.
Accordingly, with the help of the Institute of Marine Resources, our
program was continued and broadened to include studies of all the
mineral resources of the sea. Most of the original data and informa-
tion of this volume was generated during that study which was
conducted at the Department of anera1 Technology on the Berkeley
Campus of the University and at the Scripps Institution of Oceanog-
raphy on the San Diego Campus of the University. Many of the
data concerning the chemical composition were developed while the
author served as the D. C. Jackling Fellow for the year, 1960, with
financial support coming from the Mining and Metallurgical Society
of America.
The names of all the persons who helped me during those years
while I was gathering data and writing preliminary reports are too
VIII PREFACE
numerous to mention. But certainly of greatest help were Professors
G. 0. S. Arrhenius, C. D. Wheelock, R. Revelle, andE. D. Goldberg
of the University of California at San Diego. The idea of the com-
positional regions of the manganese nodules in the Pacific Ocean
came as the result of a suggestion by Professor W. H. Menard. Also
of great help to me were Professors L. E. Shaffer, E. H. Wisser,
H. E. Hawkes, S. H. Ward, and P. D. Trask of the University of
California at Berkeley who guided much of my work at the University.
Mr. W. Riedel and Professor G. 0. S. Arrhenius of Scripps, Dr.
B. C. Heezen and Mr. C. Fray of the Lamont Geological Observatory,
and Mr. T. Stetson of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
kindly located and sent to the author many samples of manganese
nodules for the various tests made on them. Mr. M. Silverman and
Professor C. D. Wheelock of the University of California at San
Diego contributed significantly in the studies concerning deep-sea
dredging.
Many individuals such as Messrs. S. Calvert, D. Owen, R. Thorn-
berg, B. C. Heezen, A. W. H. BC, C. Shipek, W. McIlhenny, B. J.
Nixon, and N. Zenkevitch, and organizations such as Leslie Salt,
Kaiser Aluminum and Chemicals, Dow Chemical, Freeport Sulphur,
Hughes Aircraft, General Mills, Global Marine Exploration, Ellicott
Machine, Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock, and the U. S.
Navy Electronics Laboratory were most helpful in supplying illustra-
tions for the book. Photographs, not otherwise credited, were taken
by the author.
Mr. J. E. Flipse and Mr. E. Anderson of the Newport News
Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company kindly read parts of the man-
s.
uscript and critized them as did Professor G. 0. Arrhenius of
Scripps and Mr. W. McIlhenny of Dow Chemical Co. Dr. K. 0.
Emery of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution read the entire
manuscript and suggested many significant changes in the text. But
probably of greatest help was Professor C. D. Wheelock who, as
director of the Institute of Marine Resources, offered the author
considerable moral and financial support during the course of his
studies at the University concerning marine mineral resources.
To all of these persons I owe a great debt of gratitude. By including
PREFACE I>:
the names of some of them here I do not intend to implicate them in
any way with erroneous conclusions I may have come to or mistakes
I may have made.
My thanks are also due to Dr. B. C. Heezen, The New Scientist of
London, the Engineering and Mining Journal, the Journal of Metals, John
Wiley and Sons of New York, Prentice-Hall, Inc., of Englewood
Cliffs, N. J., and Scientzjfc American for allowing me the use of illustra-
tions originally published by them and to the University of Chicago
Press for the use of the Goode Base Maps.
Newport News, Va. JOHN L. MERO
December 12, 1963
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The sea is generally accepted by scientists as the locale of the origin of
life on earth. Without the sea, life, as we know it today, could not
exist. The functions of the sea in relation to earthly life are numerous.
It acts as a great thermostat and heat reservoir, leveling out the tem-
perature extremes which would prevail over the earth without its
moderating influences. It is the earth's water reservoir and supply
without which the continents would be lifeless deserts. The sea
provides a means for the least expensive form of transportation known
to man. It is a playground for mankind; a major source of his food as
well as a dumping ground for his garbage. And the sea is a major
storehouse of the minerals which serve as the foundation of an indus-
trial society.
As a source of minerals, the sea has been little exploited relative to
its potential. The major reasons for this default are, I believe, a lack of
knowledge concerning what is in the ocean and of the advantages of
exploiting marine mineral deposits, the absence of a technology to
economically exploit the deposits, and no pressing need, either
economic or political, to exploit them at the present time.
In regard to mineral resources, the sea can be divided into five
regions : marine beaches, sea water, the continental shelves, surficial
sediments, and the hard rock beneath the surficial sea-floor sediments.
A variety of minerals are presently being extracted from the first three
regions of the ocean. As a result, a rather voluminous literature exists
on what is being recovered and the methods used to recover them.
Very little is known about the fifth region, that of the hard rock
underlying the soft ocean-floor sediments. No sample of this rock
has ever been obtained for chemical analysis although the thickness
of the layer between the unconsolidated sediments and tiL.. mantle of
2 INTRODUCTION
the earth averages about 3 km. The emphasis of this volume, con-
sequently, will be on the fourth region, the surficial sea-floor sediments.
Such emphasis is proper for it is the fourth region that has recently
been found to contain vast mineral resources of great economic prom-
ise. In addition, it is a region from which few, if any, minerals are
now being taken.
For purposes of this volume, the word “mineral” will be taken to
mean those elements or compounds which are normally used or
marketed in an inorganic form whether or not their mode of genesis
was due to organic or inorganic processes. In the open ocean, biotic
processes probably dominate in separating and concentrating the
various elements which enter the sea. Both plants and animals play
major roles in these processes. Materials such as calcium and silicon
are extracted in large quantities from sea water by plants and animals
for use in forming shells and skeletons. Other elements such as copper
may be concentrated by animals for use in their metabolic processes.
In addition, biota such as bacteria make a living by oxidizing certain
elements such as manganese or by consuming the organic parts of
complexes by which such elements are held in solution. The carried
elements may then be deposited and concentrated in the body of the
animal or may be converted to an insoluble precipitate and released to
diffuse through the sea water, slowly settling to the sea floor. After
the death of the animal or plant and dissolution of the biogenous
material, the residue, after diagenetic changes, can be classified as
inorganic for purposes of consideration as economic mineral deposits.
The term “mineral resource” is somewhat nebulous in meaning.
Economic systems, technology, political climates, governmental deci-
sions, taxes, and a myriad of other factors are involved in the equation
with which we attempt to determine whether or not a mineral deposit
is a mineral resource. Sometimes, even market economics gets
involved, but, seemingly, not too often any more. Mineral deposits
may be economic mineral resources, or at least potential mineral
resources, in one location but not in another, at one time in history
but not in another, and by political decision in one country but not in
another. By governmental decision and subsidy, deposits such as the
Oregon nickel deposits or the Nevada manganese deposits, become
INTRODUCTION 3
mineral resources, when, under normal circumstances of free trade,
they could not be considered mineral resources. We have mineral
resources, which given continuing technical and economic devel-
opment, will apparently last for thousands of years. Such are the
phosphate reserves of western United States. A change in economic
or technical conditions, however, can change the status of these
reserves in a very short time. Many deposists of uranium will become
uneconomic in the late 1960’s when marketing contracts with the
U. S. Atomic Energy Commission expire. The great, low-grade
copper deposits of western United States, once considered of no
value, have, through the foresight and technical and financial skills of
afew men, become one of the truly great mineral resources of the
world.
If minerals are being extracted from the marine environment at the
present time by enterprises operating under relatively normal, free-
trade conditions, additional deposits of these minerals occurring in
approximately the same form as those being extracted will be con-
sidered mineral resources. Such are magnesium, salt, and bromine,
which are taken from sea water, and sulphur, which is taken from
deposits under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. If it appears, that
with existing technology and free-trade economics, we can mine,
process, and utilize, the mineral deposits in the sea, those deposits
will be classified as potential mineral resources. Most of the deposits
described in this volume will fall into this latter classification.
A number of mines being operated at the present time extend out
under the ocean. By and large these mines are worked with the same
methods used in mines entirely within the vertical confines of the
continents. Also, a large number of the minerals being mined from
continental sources are marine in origin, that is, they were deposited
in shallow seas and bays which at some time in geologic past engulfed
the land. Practically all sedimentary mineral deposits fall into this
category.
In general, discussion in this volume will be limited to those
deposits which are of the present marine environment or are mined by
having to work in a truly marine environment, that is, in having to
deal with ocean phenomena such as waves, surf, or marine organisms.
4 INTRODUCTION
Bodies of water, such as the Dead Sea or the Caspian Sea, which are
not physically connected to the ocean will not be considered although
these bodies of waters are great producers of minerals.
There is, in many cases, no sharp line between what is a marine
resource and a continental resource. Petroleum deposits which lie in
the continental shelf more than 2 miles from the shore are exploited
by drilling directional holes from onshore drilling sites. Even though
the oil deposits are marine in origin and are now located in what
might be called a marine environment, it is difficult to see how these
deposits can be called marine resources. Exploiting these deposits
from man-made islands or drilling platforms, either resting on the
bottom or floating, and thus having to deal with the sea, makes
classification of the deposits as marine resources somewhat less ques-
tionable.
It probably is more proper to classify as marine mineral resources
those deposits which may have been formed by continental processes
above sea level, but which must be exploited by dealing with some
aspect of the marine environment, such as placer deposits in drowned
river valleys, rather than those deposits which may have been deposit-
ed through the action of the sea or on the sea floor, but which are
now parts of the continents and can be exploited by conventional
mining methods. Thus, the method of exploitation and, more spe-
cifically, the environment under which the deposit is exploited become
the important factors in determining whether or not the deposit is
termed marine or continental. Any vein-type deposits or salt dome
deposits within the continental rocks of the continental shelf or
terrace which must be exploited by offshore techniques will be
considered marine resources in this volume.
One general disadvantage of the continental ore deposits of the
world is their inequitable distribution. The cost of transportation
after the mineral is extracted from the earth is, in many cases, the
determining factor in making a mineral deposit economic to mine.
Political subdivision of the earth's surface measurably complicates
this nonuniform distribution of the ore deposits of the earth's crust as
far as mining economics is concerned. There is, in general, sufficient
mineral resources in the earth's crust to support a world population of