Deep sea mining: challenges and results from the H2020 ROBUST project
Raw materials are essential to Europe’s economy in particular for the supply of metals. Securing reliable, sustainable and undistorted supply is of growing concern in Europe, since the largest producers and exporters of raw materials are found outside of Europe. Since onshore sources are under strong pressure already there is an increasing need to explore marine resources even in the deep sea below 2500m. Prime targets for deep sea mining are ferromanganese nodules and crusts as well as massive sulphides. In this talk, we will explore these targets and what we know so far from a geological point of view, as well as discuss the challenges related to identifying zones where these mineral resources are abundant. To automate the needed mapping, the optical identification of potential resources and the autonomous verification through chemical analyses was the focus of the H2020 ROBUST project. The overall architecture of the ROBUST system will be presented, together with the main experimental results.