UK Seabed Resources joins deep-ocean mineral-mining rush
A new and controversial frontier in mining is opening up as a British firm joins a growing rush to exploit minerals in the depths of the oceans.
UK Seabed Resources is a subsidiary of the British arm of Lockheed Martin.
It has plans for a major prospecting operation in the Pacific.
The company says surveys have revealed huge numbers of so-called nodules - small lumps of rock rich in valuable metals - lying on the ocean floor south of Hawaii and west of Mexico.
The exact value of these resources is impossible to calculate reliably, but a leading UN official described the scale of mineral deposits in the world's oceans as "staggering" with "several hundred years' worth of cobalt and nickel".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21774447