Marine Stones

Harvesting of Marine Stones: The Past and Today

The sea, like the land, has been a source of sustenance for humans since the stone ages. In the Old Stone Age humans wandered from place to place, foraging for food, eating, resting and moving on. Eventually humans learnt to settle and do things by using the land and sea. One of the things learnt was making and use of lime powder from corals. Initially wood ash was used but gradually humans found out that coral stone from the sea was of the best quality. That was a long time ago and today there is far more interest in harvesting from the sea, including the continuation of search and collection of precious stones.

Coral stone from the coral reefs are harvested and processed into lime powder. It is practiced by the Tolai of Rabaul as well as other coastal villages in PNG, including the Kiriwina coastals in Trobriands. The practice had been around since our ancestors discovered coral as a mineral for processing into lime powder. This powder is used for chewing betel nut and ceremonial decorations.

The traditional method of mining coral is simple. People wait for the right tide level and go out in canoes and harvest the coral.  The harvesting of coral is not done on the deep sea bed but on the coral reefs. Now goggles and gloves are used. Before the arrival of goggles and gloves bare hands and sticks were used to break off the corals.

This practice has been in place for over hundreds of years. Besides the economic benefits, there is no doubt that the continuous practice, especially irresponsible practice, is very bad for the healthy continuity of marine environment and its inhabitants. The introduction of the modern currencies (Deutsche, British, Australian, and eventually PNG) hastened the disruption, and in some areas destruction, of large areas of coral as the lime became part of the goods exchanged in the modern economy. The lime was, and still is, made and sold in the markets today.

One of the many bed effects of harvesting coral is the smell. The smell of dying coral is very bed and can remain in the air for months. That is the reason harvested corals are stored well away from the village. Usually the harvested corals are left to dry by the shoreline. Now, how great would the smell come from large scale harvesting of rocks from the seabed, remains to be seen.

Modern Interests on Marine Stones

Today seabed mining interest and activities has found its way into territories rich in minerals for harvesting of the precious stones. The Bismarck Archipelago is one rich area. The modern practice of harvesting differs greatly from harvesting coral in many ways. Some of the obvious differences are magnitude, depth and the type of stones. The type of stones that are of current interest are located well below the corals that is harvested for lime.

Special machinery and equipment are going to be used.  Most of these equipment have not been used anywhere in the world. This seabed mining in the Bismarck Archipelago will be the first of its kind anywhere in the world where copper, gold and other minerals are going to be dug and extracted. The seabed mine will generate wealth for people around the world, not only PNG. After the minerals have been extracted, what will happen to the environment in the future? Do we know for sure what will happen?

Preparation including scientific studies and conferences on seabed mining started well before people in Papua New Guinea were fully informed that it is possible to mine the minerals under the seabed of the Bismarck Archipelago. 

It is important to be informed on seabed mining since it has found its way into our part of the sea. This is not just for awareness but taking responsible action whether one supports seabed mining or disapproves.

LOCATING INFORMATION ON SEABED MINING

Now where does one get information on seabed mining?  A list of Vocabulary on sea bed mining is provided that one may use as search terms are provided. The Vocabulary is arranged in sections: 1, Geography; 2. Marine; 3. Marine Mining; 5. Regulations.  It is not an exhaustive list but starters. This is followed by some links from Google searches that the reader may follow and read in order to get informed on the subject of seabed mining. Some of the links are annotated. Some of these are informational on the subject while others are links to opposition on sea bed mining. 

Vocabulary

1. Geography

Bismarck Archipelago. - 1. An archipelago located in the Solomon Sea where islands such as New Britain and New Ireland are located..

2.Island group of Papua New Guinea in the Bismarck Sea, southwestern Pacific Ocean, that lies northeast of the island of New Guinea. The largest components of the archipelago, which has a total land area of about 18,600 square miles (48,200 square km), are New Britain, New Ireland, the Admiralty Islands, New Hanover (Lavongai), and the smaller Duke of York Group, St. Matthias Group, and Witu (Vitu) Islands. The islands are generally volcanic or formed of raised coral limestone and are heavily forested.

Annexed by Germany in 1884, the archipelago was named for the German statesman Otto von Bismarck. The Germans developed copra plantations, but nonnative diseases carried by the Europeans killed many people on the islands. The archipelago was occupied by Australia in 1914 and made a mandated territory of Australia in 1920. The group was seized with little difficulty by Japan during World War II; Rabaul and other villages on the islands suffered heavy damage when Allied troops recaptured the area over the course of six weeks in 1944. The archipelago was subsequently made part of the UN Trust Territory of New Guinea, administered by Australia. When Papua New Guinea attained independence in 1975, the group became part of that country.

The economic mainstay of the islands is copra, with some lumbering and, more recently, cocoa and oil palm. Yams, sago, taro, bananas, and fish are the basic foods of the archipelago. (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/67049/Bismarck-Archipelago )

Rabaul  - The old town of East New Britain Province built during the colonial era and was destroyed by the twin volvanic eruptions on 19th September, 1994.

Kokopo  - The new town and headquarters of East New Britain

New Britain -The island on which East New Britain Province is located and home to the Baining, Tolai, and Pomio. 

New Ireland - The island just across the St George Channel, located north-east from East New Britain. The Tolai of Rabaul migrated centuries ago from New Ireland.

Countries - Tonga, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Japan, and New Zealand are some of the countries that seabed mining is set to begin.

2. Marine

chalcopyrite - a very high grade copper mineral, with high gold content

hydrothermal vent - a fissure in a planet's surface from which geothermally heated water issues. Hydrothermal vents are commonly found near volcanically active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart, ocean basins, and hotspots.(Wikipedia)   Essentially these vents are geysers that emit  jets of particle-laden fluids.

manganese nodules -lumps rich in metals 

polymetallic nodules - rock concretions on the sea bottom formed of concentric layers of iron and manganese hydroxides around a core. They are also called manganese nodules.

3. Marine Mining

Deep-seabed mining - mining carried out underwater by remote methods, controlled from a floating platform at the sea surface.

Methods - ways in which the minerals are collected from the seabed. There are only four basic ways to mine, or recover mineral deposits: 1. scraping them from the surface, 2. excavating them from a hole, 3. tunnelling to a deposit beneath the surface, 4. drilling into the deposit and fluidizing it.

Seabed technology - equipment and techniques used to investigate

and exploit the deep seabed.

Solwara 1. - The flagship of Nautilus which is the first company in the world to explore the ocean floor for polymetallic seafloor massive sulphide deposits.

4. Regulations

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) - is simply defined as the process of identifying the future consequences of current or proposed action.

Evironmental Impact Statement - An Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is a comprehensive document that reports the findings of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and now often required by law before a new project can proceed. A typical EIS, usually prepared by the project on behalf of the proponent (usually by consultants), focuses on the issues most relevant to decision-making. It can be broken down into three parts with different levels of detail:

•  Volume 1 - a comprehensive and concise document drawing together all relevant information
• regarding the development project;
•  Non-Technical Summary (NTS) - a brief report of volume 1 in non-technical language that can
• easily be understood by the public;
•  Volume 2 - a volume that contains a detailed assessment of the significant environmental
• effects.(not necessary when there are no significant effects either before or after mitigation).

(http://www.deepseaminingoutofourdepth.org/deep-sea-riches-could-spark-pacific-mining-boom/)

Serious concern has been raised on the quality of the Environmental Impact Assessment that was done by Nautilus (or done by someone for Nautilus). According to  http://kasm.org.nz/seabed-mining/what-is-seabed-mining/ Nautilus's Environmental Statement was insufficient as illustrated by the following:

•  Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) which critics such as Rick Steiner, a retired professor of marine conservation at the University of Alaska, say was inadequate.
•  
•  This was the document that Nautilus submitted to the government, seeking permission to do the project. One, it was incomplete – the annexes and appendices were not available,’ says Professor Steiner.
• ‘Even the body of the document showed glaring omissions. The science was only partially completed. There were a lot of unanswered questions, a lot of issues the EIS did not address.’
• Nautilus says substantial scientific work has been done since then, much of it funded by the company, and there are remediation plans.
• But one of the lessons from Solwara 1, according to Jimmie Rodgers, is the need for independent assessment of an EIS.
• There has been anxiety within coastal communities in PNG about what impacts the mining might have on the water quality, and the fact that it’s being done in a volcanic area.
• The other lesson for the rest of the Pacific, says Rodgers, is the need to do community consultation well.
• ‘When you look at the kind of information you put to the community, it’s got to be both the benefits, and the cons,’ he says.
• ‘When you look at areas of environmental degradation, there’s not enough known about the impact on the seabed, at this point in time. And we’ve got to be truthful, nobody really knows, not even the scientists really know.
• ‘If you look at terrestrial mining we can see open cut mining and not too much is left there. It doesn’t take too much imagination to think what happens, if the same kind of thing happens on the seabed.’

international seabed Area  - the seabed and subsoil beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.

International Seabed Authority (ISA). - an autonomous international organisation that administers mineral resources in the Area.

Law of the Sea (international law [1982]) - Branch of international law concerned with public order at sea. Much of this law is codified in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, (www.britannica.com)

LINKS

www.cares.nautilusminerals.com
Under its flagship Solwara 1, it is the first company to explore the ocean floor for polymetallic seafloor massive sulphide deposits in the Bismarck Archipelago.

http://www.globaloceancommission.org/issues/seabed-mining/

This is an informative site and in part it says:

In the main, mining companies are not now aiming for nodules, but for much larger deposits formed near hydrothermal vents, where hot, mineral-rich water gushes up through the ocean floor. These deposits, which can be up to 100 million tonnes in weight, are rich in metals such as copper, zinc and lead. They have also been found to contain rare earth elements that are becoming increasingly important in cutting-edge technologies such as high-density hard-drives, lasers and wind turbine generators

www.fni.no/ybiced/94_02_markussen.pdf‎

The article focuses on environmental consequences of deep seabed mining. The first part deals with environmental impacts. The second part deals with regulations – environmental consequences. The concluding section of the document discusses Future Prospects.

It is a well researched document with 29 items in its bibliography at the end. The author of this document is JM Markussen.

http://www.isa.org.jm/en/home

This is the Home page of the International Seabed Authority (ISA). ISA is an autonomous international organisation that administers mineral resources in the Area.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_sea_mining‎

There is information now in Wikipedia on seabed mining.

www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/530433/‎

Law of the Sea (international law [1982]) is a branch of international law concerned with public order at sea. Much of this law is codified in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

http://www.unlawoftheseatreaty.org/

The Law of the Sea Treaty, formally known as the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS III, was adopted in 1982. Its purpose is to establish a comprehensive set of rules governing the oceans and to replace previous U.N. Conventions on the Law of the Sea, one in 1958 (UNCLOS I) and another in 1960 (UNCLOS II), that were believed to be inadequate.

The Law of the Sea Treaty calls for technology transfers and wealth transfers from developed to undeveloped nations. It also requires parties to the treaty to adopt regulations and laws to control pollution of the marine environment.

The complete Law of the Sea Treaty can be accessed via a link in this site.

www.foe.org.au/chain-reaction/editions/117/deep-sea-mining‎

Apart from its concern for the environment this site lists countries where seabed mining is going to take place and these include Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Tonga.

Other Links

Other links are listed here without any annotations also provide useful information. Some of the links contain information on opposition to seabed mining.

http://www.who.int/heli/impacts/en/

WHO’s website on impact assessment provides links to web-accessible resources on impact assessment, with reference to environment and health. These are organized into categories of relevance to policy-making.

·         Overview

·         Health impact assessment

·         Environmental assessment

·         Strategic assessment

·         Sustainability assessment

·         Case-studies

·         Economic evaluation

·         Guidance

·         Training/capacity building

·         Advocacy/community action

·         Conventions/strategic policies

·         UNEP, WHO and other UN links

·         Other organizational links

ramumine.wordpress.com/tag/experimental-seabed-mining/‎

actnowpng.org/.../please-help-stop-experimental-seabed-mining-pacific‎

www.pngblogs.com/2013/08/seabed-mining-not-in-best-interest-of.html‎

www.rnzi.com 

www.miningwatch.ca/.../nautilus-seabed-mining-experiment-falters-disp...‎

londonminingnetwork.org/tag/seabed-mining/‎

www.mining.com/nautilus-seabed-mining-project-jeopardized-a...‎

www.mpi.org.au/issues/deep-sea-mining/deep-sea-mining-png/‎

www.miningaustralia.com.au 

www.deepseaminingoutofourdepth.org/tag/papua-new-guinea/‎

www.islandsbusiness.com/.../papua-new-guinea/.../png-fisheries-concern...‎

www.mineweb.com/mineweb/.../mineweb-independent-viewpoint?oid...‎

www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-04/...png...seabed-mining.../4498588‎

asopa.typepad.com/.../i-say-reverse-the-decision-on-seabed-mining-in-p...‎

www.pngfacts.com/.../png-mining-minister-not-expecting-damage-from-...‎