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Asked by mulvj004 to Verity on 15 Jun 2011.
Question: is it possible that in the future we could potentially use hydrothermal vents as a source of energy and a source of minerals which could be mined eg. sulfur?
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Verity Nye answered on 15 Jun 2011:
Good question and a hot topic right now! Vents are very high in minerals that are of value to humans. Proposals were made for extracting minerals from hydrothermal vents in the 1980s but there were doubts about the technical and financial possibility of mining the deep-sea floor. Now the technology for such activities is available and at least 2 companies are going ahead with mining exploration in territorial waters of island nations in the southwest Pacific with plans to start removing minerals (and organisms) within the next few years. Although some national governments have introduced marine parks to protect vent fields of particular scientific interest not all vents lie in national waters and there is no stratgy in place to assess the impacts of mining. Some scientists feel that mining is likely to be inevitable whereas some of us think that it doesn’t have to be. Either way, scientists need to promote conservation of these unique environments.
As for using hydrothermal vents as an energy source I haven’t heard anything about that but who am I to say that it would be be impossible?
Comments
mulvj004 commented on :
thank youu for your reply was very useful
If there are plans to commence mining the hydrothermal vents for their then along with that comes the issue of the loss of habitat for the organisms that live there? how would scientits go about solving this dilema in order to maintain the life of those organisms?
Verity commented on :
Hi mulvj004. Only just found your comment so apologies for slow response. Your quite right that mining would result in the loss of habitat for the organisms, as well as loss of the organisms themselves. We are only just starting to understand how populations are established and maintained in these insular and ephemeral environments so we are not in a good position to be able to say whether all the organisms would be able to repopulate the vents field or not. How the animals establish and maintain populations in these insular and ephermeral environments is a key research question that we are still addressing. This is one reason why it is to soon to start mining vents. If they just wanted to mine a small area it is possible that the disruption would be no greater than that which occurs when a vent erupts naturally. However, they want to mine huge areas that would wipe out a significantly greater area than a natural eruption would. We just don’t know how long it would take to re-establish the habitat and if all the organisms would make a come back. If there are other populations that are close enough to be a source of new inhabitants they might return, but the community structure and composition might be different. This is a real issue in an environment where there is a high degree of endemism (species that are only known is these environments), and many species are only known from one or two sites. Personally I feel that it is too early to mine vents and we can’t afford to assume that the commencement of mining is inevitable. Until we know more about the population dynamics of these environments we can’t adequately predict what would happen. Although some areas have been protected the scientific community needs to come together to establish further conservation measures and not just assume that mining is inevitable.