The Metals Company’s subsidiary submits dee-sea environmental data set to be analyzed for mfg. applications

The Metals Company’s subsidiary submits dee-sea environmental data set to be analyzed for mfg. applications (GlobeNewswire)

NEW YORK — TMC the metals company Inc., an explorer undeveloped sources of critical battery metals, announced that its subsidiary NORI has made a second submission of key environmental data from all prior environmental baseline campaigns conducted in the NORI-D exploration area up to January 2022 to DeepData, an open database of contractor data managed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA).

The submission of this batch of data, which includes analysis of a set of geochemical and biological samples from across the water column, follows NORI’s research efforts to define the polymetallic nodule resource and develop an environmental baseline for its NORI-D exploration area, as part of its Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for the NORI-D Nodule Project.

Dr Michael Clarke, Environmental Manager at The Metals Company, said: “This accumulation of baseline data over the last decade represents the most comprehensive dataset ever collected in the CCZ. When combined and compared with the wealth of data gathered during our 2022 test mining and post-disturbance monitoring campaigns, we believe preliminary analysis is demonstrating that much of the conjecture around environmental impacts of nodule collection is not supported by the science. We are looking forward to submitting the Environmental Impact Statement to the ISA and publishing the dozens of academic papers that will result from this work. When this information becomes available, I am confident that objective stakeholders will clearly see that deep-sea nodule collection is a far less impactful way to source critical metals than mining on land.”

The company says that this year’s ISA data submission highlights include:

Over 12,000 seafloor images from Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) operations, reportedly leading to:

• Annotation and identification of over 30,000 megafauna and xenophyophores occurrences by the UK National Oceanography Centre.
• More than 2,000 gelatinous nekton identified by JAMSTEC from high-definition ROV video transects conducted from surface to seafloor.

Over the coming months, NORI says they will continue working with research teams to fully collate and categorize the hundreds of terabytes of data and thousands of biological samples that have been collected to date.