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Composition, Formation, and Occurrence of Polymetallic Nodules

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Deep-Sea Mining

Abstract

Manganese nodules occur as two-dimensional deposits in abyssal plains of all major oceans. In the Clarion-Clipperton Zone of the northeast equatorial Pacific alone, the amount of nodules is estimated to 21 billion tons indicating the huge potential of this deposit type. Apart from manganese, metals of economic interest are nickel, copper, and cobalt, but the nodules also contain interesting amounts of molybdenum, titanium, lithium, and the rare earth elements. Therefore they are also called as polymetallic nodules.

The nodules consist of concentrically banded zones of micro-layers around a nucleus. They form by metal precipitation either from the ambient seawater (hydrogenetic) or from pore water in the sediments (diagenetic). They generally consist of a mixture of both genetic types but in varying proportions. Hydrogenetic precipitation leads to the enrichment of other metals than diagenetic precipitation (cobalt, rare earths versus nickel, copper, etc.), thus controlling the general chemical composition of the nodules. It seems that suboxic conditions (dissolved oxygen content is less than 5% of the saturation concentration) are generally necessary for diagenetic formation and oxic conditions for hydrogenetic formation. The change from oxic to suboxic conditions and vice versa is probably climatically controlled.

Manganese nodules from the sediment surface are mainly composed of phyllomanganates such as vernadite, birnessite, and buserite, whereas amounts of todorokite seem to be negligible. Phyllomanganates contain their metals either as substitutes of manganese in octahedral layers or as hydrated cations in the interlayers.

Well-studied occurrences of manganese nodules are known from the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the NE equatorial Pacific, the Peru Basin in the SE Pacific, the Cook Island region in the SW Pacific, the central Indian Ocean Basin, and the Baltic Sea.

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  1. Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), Stilleweg 2, 30655, Hannover, Germany

    T. Kuhn, A. Wegorzewski, C. Rühlemann & A. Vink

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    Rahul Sharma

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Kuhn, T., Wegorzewski, A., Rühlemann, C., Vink, A. (2017). Composition, Formation, and Occurrence of Polymetallic Nodules. In: Sharma, R. (eds) Deep-Sea Mining. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52557-0_2

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