Manganese nodules on the seabed in the Clarion-Clipperton area in the Pacific Ocean, photographed by a 2015 expedition
Kiel Kiel 6000 / Geomar (CC by 4.0)
Biodiversity is exhausted and large furrows are still in the seabed where mining equipment on the high seas operated more than 40 years ago, in the results which suggest that it will take several decades of the deep sea to completely recover from mining activities.
High seas nodules are filled with precious metallic resources such as cobalt and manganese, critical components in electric car batteries and other devices.