MIT Media Lab | Open Ocean Initiative
Seminar Series on 2020-07-13
Dr. Thomas Peacock is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He is the Director of the ENvironmental Dynamics Laboratory (ENDLab), which undertakes research on Physical Oceanography and Environmental Fluid Mechanics, topics that underpin many environmental challenges facing society today.

Dr. Thomas Peacock discussed his work on the societal and scientific aspects of deep-sea mining. The abyssal ocean possesses vast reserves of minerals such as nickel and cobalt, many times those of all global land-based reserves, in the form of polymetallic nodules. In recent years there has been a substantial increase in activities on the topic of deep-sea mining, with exploration licenses granted in the Clarion Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCFZ), an extensive area of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico. A topic of particular importance for deep-sea mining is the extent of the sediment plumes that would be generated by such activity. Potentially two-types of sediment plumes would be created: one in the wake immediately behind a collector vehicle operating on the seabed; and potentially another discharged into the water column from a surface operation vessel. Dr. Peacock provided an overview of the topic of deep-sea mining, and detailed the fluid dynamics and current state-of-knowledge of the associated sediment plumes.

Thumbnail image: photo by Shah Shahidh on Unsplash