Deep Sea Minerals

Deep Sea Minerals – An Arctic Perspective on Critical Minerals and the Green Transition

by , Research Professor of Tectonics, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. Professor of Geophysics, Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, Copenhagen University.

As the world transitions away from fossil fuels, there is a growing interest is finding and exploiting other earth materials required to meet future energy needs in a climate friendly way. Recent discoveries of vast quantities of critical minerals accessible on the world’s ocean floor have led to calls for accelerated exploration and exploitation as means to meet the demands of carbon neutral energy production. But what do we mean by ‘critical minerals’, and where in the world’s oceans can we expect to find such deposits? What is the potential in Greenlandic waters, and what do we know about potential environmental impacts?  In this talk, I will review what is known, and not known, about deep sea minerals with a particular focus on Greenland’s offshore areas and efforts by others to investigate deep sea minerals nearby and in similar environments.