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By Tetsuo Yamazaki

The Kuroko-type seafloor massive sulfides (SMS) in the western Pacific have received much attention as sources for economic recovery of gold (Au), silver (Ag), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), and lead (Pb). Since the end of the 1980s, the Kuroko-type SMS have been found in the back-arc basins and on oceanic island-arc areas. In Okinawa Trough (Halbach et al., 1989) and on the Izu-Ogasawara Arc (Iizasa et al., 1999) are the typical representatives in the Japan’s EEZ. They yield a higher concentration in Au and Ag than the SMS found in ocean ridge areas (Rona, 1985). Similar formation processes with the Kuroko ore deposits on-land in Japan have been expected and outlined by many researchers (Sillitoe, 1982; Scott, 1985). The higher Au and Ag contents have increased the chances for profitable mining operation, which is under consideration by a private company (Malnic, 2001). Information about the resource potential of the targeted Kuroko-type SMS deposit, such as the amount of SMS ore body, the inside structure, the mean metal yields, and the geographical details are necessary for a technical and economic validation analysis for the development. The Sunrise Deposit of Myojin Knoll on Izu-Ogasawara Arc in the Japan’s EEZ is selected as a target for the technical and economic validation analysis. The relatively higher amount of information on its resource potential is the reason why the deposit is selected.

Sep 24, 2006

By Jung-Hoon Kang

Present study was stemmed from the survey associated with deep-sea mining in the KODOS area between Clarion Fracture Zone and Clipperton Fracture Zone located in the North Pacific Ocean. The study area, which is located in the southeastern part of North Pacific gyre, is oligotrophic waters with low nutrients and chl-a concentrations below 1µg/l (MOMAF, 1996). This area is also characterized by divergence at 8°N and convergence at 6°N, which moved northward or southward in the range of a few kilometers with seasonal and climate changes. If the waste materials related to deep-sea mining are intruded into the surface waters continuously, unexpected effects to water column ecosystem are anticipated negatively. In order to assess the impact on the planktonic ecosystem, natural variation need to be distinguished from anthropogenically induced variation in terms of the abundance and species composition of plankton. In this study, mesoscale variation of zooplankton community was reported in relation to the physical conditions in the northeastern Pacific during 1998 and 1999. Temperature and salinity were determined using a CTD from surface to 200m depth in July 3-20, 1998 and in June 22-July 1, 1999. Zooplankton samples were collected from two different depths (0-50m, 50-200m) by vertical towing using an opening-closing net (100cm diameter and 300 µm mesh size). The samplings were carried out at every one degree between 5° and 12°N (1998), between 5° and 11°N (1999) along the meridional lines of 131°30´ W. The net was lowered to the depth of interest from a stationary research vessel and towed upward to collect zooplankton at a speed of 25~30 m per minute. Zooplankton samples were transferred to 1-l sampling bottles and immediately fixed with neutralized formalin into the final concentration of 5%. Considering the characteristics of zooplankton such as diurnal vertical migration, all samplings were done during the nighttime. The volume filtered by the net was calculated from the readings of flow meter (Hydro-Bios Model 438-115). Zooplankton were identified to the genus level and enumerated under a microscope. The abundance of zooplankton at each station was expressed as the numbers/100 m3.

Jan 1, 2003

By Christian Müller, Hermann-Rudolf Kudrass, Christian Reichert

Recent studies estimate the depletion mid-point (dmp) for conventional natural gas to be reached around year 2022, and for conventional oil to be reached around year 2017. These numbers are based on simplified assumptions of unchanged demand and do not include increasing reserves from discovery of new fields and also do not include a shifting of resources to reserves e.g. due to an increasing oil price (Gerling et al., 2005). Anyhow, these prospects require conventional hydrocarbons to be substituted in the near future.

Aug 24, 2006

By Ning Yang, Sup Hong

INTRODUCTION Metal components contained in deep-seabed mineral resources are being highlighted as “energy metals”, which are widely utilized in the entire fields of energy: harvesting and generation, storage and transportation, and saving. Those are mostly trace and rare metals, and rare earth elements as well: manganese, nickel, cobalt, copper, molybdenum, tellurium, selenium, platinum, etc. Toward low carbon society, for global sustainability, the role of metals and minerals is growing up in industries of energy and transportation [1]. In this context, the production and supply of energy metals from deep seafloor have to be approached also based on sustainable development. In deep-seabed mining activity, the sustainability is focused on potential impacts on ecosystems in benthic area and water column. The environmental impacts in deep-seabed mining are caused basically by intervention in benthic zones and transportation of materials. Those are, in particular, removal of benthic habitats, generation and dispersion of sediment plumes, surface transportation of seawater and sediment, tailing from mining vessel, sound and light noises, and chemical leakage, etc. This paper is aiming at fundamental guidance towards sustainable mining of polymetallic nodules.

Jan 1, 2018

By Alexander Malahoff

The most exciting frontier in Ocean Technology is represented by a new class of Marine Bioproducts, the source of which lies in marine microorganisms. The microorganisms include microalgae, bacteria and archaea. These organisms represent very diverse, adaptive life forms and in their metabolic processes use carotenoids, polyunsaturated fatty acids, ultraviolet blockers, as well as a wide range of enzymes that are pivotal in the production of new pharmaceuticals and nutraceutical products. These organisms cover a wide spectrum of ocean environments, from the shallow to the deep, from the normal to the extreme. The technological challenge is in the identification of candidate organisms, in the screening for valuable enzymes, and in the industrial production. A whole new range of collecting strategies involving submersibles, ROVs and in situ ocean floor instrumentation is emerging. New non-polluting industrial chemical processes involving the use of photobioreactors and extremophile bioreactors for breeding and monitoring these organisms in neo-farming technology is emerging. The commercial value of these candidate products is immense, as is the range of potential organisms. The dimension of this new industry is global. The Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center (MarBEC), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), has been established at the University of Hawaii. The vision of MarBEC is to develop a seamless research system stretching from undergraduate education to industry for the purposes of producing valuable marine bioproducts outside of the normal chemical factory production. MarBEC is uniquely and strategically placed in the Pacific to explore, find, and adapt highly bioactive marine micro-organisms found in the tropical ocean. We have watched the increasing need by the ever-

Jan 1, 2000

By Wiebe Boomsma

INTRODUCTION Starting in February 2014, 19 partners from EU industry, research institutions and academia joined forces and formed the Blue Mining consortium. In the following four years, they have set out to work on the development of deep sea mining technology, looking into exploration, identification, economic assessment and vertical transport systems for the mining of seafloor massive sulphides and polymetallic nodules. In the beginning 2018 this research & development project has come to an end. The Blue Mining project was one of the first EU subsidised projects embracing the TRL system. This system describes a method of de-risking technology using a simple 9-step approach. This method requires experimental testing in laboratory and relevant environments to be able to reach the higher levels (TRL>5) This paper will discuss the progress in development of the vertical transport system, with a focus on the performed experimental work. This paper will discuss three topics: • Booster station technology • Riser dynamics • Vertical hydraulic transport process. BOOSTER STATION TECHNOLOGY Deep knowledge of transport processes is a prerequisite for a clog free vertical transport One of the key technologies in the VTS is the booster station. The centrifugal pump booster station concept is developed in Blue Mining, it consists of two centrifugal pumps and multiple valves, assembled in member-type frame. Deep sea conditions pose special requirements on all components due to the extreme pressures at large water depths. In the Blue Mining project a Deep Sea Special Motor has been developed and tested in laboratory and in the field. The motor is completely filled, lubricated and cooled using seawater due to its unique open structure, furthermore it does not require any lubricants minimizing the environmental pressure of the motor. The motor is first extensively tested in a laboratory, after these tests have been concluded successfully, the motor is shipped to Norway where it has been successfully tested for more than 100 hours at 425 meter water depth.

Jan 1, 2018

By J. A. Jankowski

The situation in the raw material market has brought into consideration the commercial exploitation of the mineral deposits on the deep sea bed and in particular the manganese nodules. They occur generally in depths of 4000-5000 m, partially covered or buried in bottom sediments. The deposits and their potential recovery have been intensively explored and researched during the past twenty years (Bischoff 1979, Halbach 1988, Padan 1990). Although the present market situation limits the rentability of deep sea mining on an industrial scale, the mining technology is being further developed in many countries. The stagnation phase in the deep mining issue allows sufficient time for conducting research on the precautionary protection of the deep sea environment and for consultation in the development of technologies with the least possible impact on it. The subject has gained in importance since autumn 1994, when the United Nations International Law of the Sea was signed. This also regulates human activities in international waters from the environmental point of view. As fields tests have shown in the past, even with the most modern technologies, mining of the manganese nodules will inevitably be accompanied by a resuspension of some bottom sediments. The generated sediment plumes will be further transported with the ocean currents and in the worst case form stable turbidity layers in different depths (Ozturgut 1981a, Baturin 1991). One of the problems of the environmental impact assessment is the estimation of the plume persistence before it eventually dilutes to approximately the ambient concentration level or settles at the bottom (Lavelle 1981a, Lavelle 1981b, Lavelle 1982, Thiel 1991a, Thiel 1991b). The aim of the research is to develop a numerical sediment transport model in connection with potential manganese nodule mining in a reference area located in the southeastern equatorial Pacific Ocean off Peru (Peru Basin, Discol Experimental Area). In this region, a German mining claim is registered and interdisciplinary field works of the TUSCH (German: TiefseeUmweltSCHutz, deep sea environmental protection) research group are carried out in order to obtain the required scientific background for evaluating of the deep sea mining impacts and to provide the necessary supporting data for the modelling (Thiel 1991a, Thiel 1991h).

Jan 1, 1995

By Terence Day

The traditional approach to mineral resource development is to identify the resource and then to undertake an environmental impact assessment of the effects of developing the resource. However, the traditional approach tends to ignore or underestimate cumulative, indirect and synergistic effects (Therivel et al., 1992). Moreover, traditional environmental impact assessment puts the project proponent in a position where the environmental impact assessment is used to defend on environmental grounds, a decision which has already been taken on technical and economic grounds. An alternative approach is to undertake an area-wide or strategic environmental assessment, (United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1981; Kelly et al., 1987). Strategic environmental assessment consists of the compilation and analysis of environmental data and information on an area. The data and information includes physical and chemical oceanographic data, biological surveys, social and economic parameters such as recreation and resource use, and ecosystem stressors such as dumping areas and sewage outfalls. Strategic environmental assessment is being increasingly used in the U.S. to provide scientific information to evaluate national or regional objectives for development and conservation of coastal and oceanic resources (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 1991). The strategic environmental assessment process lends itself very well to an evaluation of offshore sand and gravel re- sources in Atlantic Canada, because although the potential resource is widespread, the environmental constraints on development are potentially serious, but highly variable. The approach has the merits of identifying areas which are least susceptible to environmental damage, and of concentrating the exploration efforts on that part of the resource which is most viable from the perspective of integrated resource management and marine conservation.

Jan 1, 1995

By Nobuyuki Okamoto

The 21-year long-term Japan-SOPAC Cooperative Deep-sea Mineral Resources Study Programme was completed in March 2006. The Programme, which commenced in 1985, has seen numerous marine research surveys being conducted within the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of 12 SOPAC member countries (Figure 1). The various research and government institutions that have been closely involved in this longstanding Programme include: the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA); Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) (formerly, the Metal Mining Agency of Japan, MMAJ) and relevant ministries of the participating Pacific Island governments.

Sep 24, 2006

By T. Semkova, G. Cherkashov, V. Rashidov, L. Anikeeva, G. Gavrilenko, G. Glasby

The Kurile Arc consists of at least 100 submarine volcanoes and 5 submarine calderas located mainly in the rear arc (Figure 1). The arc is seismically very active, particularly in the south, and is characterized by extensive volcanism and hydrothermal activity. At least one subaerial volcano on the arc (Medvezhy located on Iturup island) has an extremely shallow magma chamber and is intensely active.

By Art Wright, Steinar L. Ellefmo, Kurt Aasly, Mike Williamson, Fredrik Søreide, Martin Ludvigsen, Michael Zylstra

Exploring for minerals on the seabed is challenging and expensive – and the ability to collect representative sub surface samples is essential. The research project MarMine led by NTNU has together with Seattle based Williamson and Associates developed and tested an ROV-based drill rig for mineral (seafloor massive sulfides and crusts) and rock sampling. The ROCS system is a single stroke drill and is simple, robust and possible to use from various larger ROVs. For the vehicle to provide a stable platform, the vertical bollard pull of the ROV and the vehicle mass are important variables. The developed drill uses a thin wall drill bit and barrel and operates at high RPM to reduce the required down weight and drilling moments. The system also contains an emergency release to be used if the core barrel is stuck. The drill is hydraulically powered with cylinders operating the tower and a rotation unit. It can rapidly be modified to provide samples from softer samples like unconsolidated material. At the Arctic Mid Ocean Ridge, a work class ROV was deployed with the drill mounted for testing at 2700 m depth in basalt rock. The recovery from the system was above 80%. Such core samples can be used for chemical analyses of metal and mineral grades, mineralogy and rock mechanical testing. The system provides a probing tool for marine mineral exploration, with low cost, low operational complexity and low risk. Proper resource estimation requires drilling deeper into the deposit, but the short core samples provided by the ROCS provide valuable a priori information planning for more extensive drilling campaigns.

Jan 1, 2017

By Randolph A. Koski

Since 1985, numerous constructional sulfide-sulfate deposits in the form of mounds, pinnacles, chimneys, and sheets have been located between 40°45' and 41°05'N latitude in Escanaba Trough, the sediment-covered axial valley of the Southern Gorda Ridge. Single-channel seismic data indicate that three volcanic edifices up to 6 km in width penetrate as much as 500 m of turbidites that fill the valley; pillow and sheet flow lavas are exposed on the sea floor where these volcanoes breach the sediment surface. Observations from deeply towed camera systems and submersibles show that the largest hydrothermal deposits occur along the step-faulted northern flank of the central volcanic edifice and on the peripheries of steep-sided, sediment-capped hills, approximately 1 km wide and 100 m high, that rise above the valley floor. The sulfide deposits are highly oxidized, eroded, and partly buried by unconsolidated sediment; aprons of sulfide talus extend downslope from the mounds. Two types of sulfide have been sampled by dredging and submersible. The predominant mound and chimney material is pyrrhotite-rich massive sulfide with low amounts of Zn, Pb, Cd, and Ag. Coarse-grained zones with high porosity mark the location of myriad fluid channelways. Thin crusts of barite associated with pyrrhotite-rich sulfide have Au contents up to 2 ppm. Zoned fragments of polymetallic (Fe-Zn-Pb-Cu-As-Ag-Sb) sulfide dredged from a single site near 41°01'N latitude are part of a chimneylike vent structure with a

Jan 1, 1988

By Anthony Wakefield

Dredging tends to be either horizontal or vertical. In each case solids have to be disengaged from the deposit, mobilized, acquired and elevated or translated. One means of elevation is the airlift. Elevation and translation of essentially granular material nay be by jet pump or centrifugal pump. Any of the three types may be used on its own. The airlift and jet pump may he combined for vertical transport and the centrifugal and jet pumps for predominantly horizontal. Both suction point and pipework must have a means of deployment from the surface or from a submerged vehicle or merely a diver. An airlift is an energetic system, having a source of energy and a means of storing it. It therefore will be difficult to prevent oscillation -surging. A centrifugal pump has a characteristic that bends over at low flow rate and is therefore intrinsically unsuitable for pumping solids. The result is blockage, operation at high velocity and correspondingly high wear rates or operation at low concentration of solids and correspondingly low efficiency. The jet pump is intrinsically exceptionally stable but has a low hydraulic efficiency. The jet pump-airlift hybrid prevents or reduces surging and increases system efficiency away from the optimum depth for airlift operation. Delivered solids concentration is increased. The jet pump-centrifugal pump hybrid totally prevents pipeline blockages and increases the productivity from a given pipeline size. For a given energy input the average production is typically doubled. For example, the Indian River Delaware bypassing pipeline transmits an overall day-in-day-out average of 500t/h (tonnes) of sand down a 10.86" diameter line.

Jan 1, 1998

By Charles L. Morgan

In June 1996, the United Nations International Seabed Authority opened shop in Kingston, Jamaica as an autonomous international organization charged with the administration of seabed mineral developments in all areas beyond national jurisdictions. The Authority is a consequence of the 16 November, 1994 entry into force of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the 1994 Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI of UNCLOS. The total seabed area included within the Authority?s purview has yet to be assessed accurately, but clearly constitutes the largest single jurisdiction on the planet. The Authority is governed by legislative bodies called the Assembly and the Council and an administration called the Secretariat. The Assembly includes representatives of the 132 member states which are currently parties both to UNCLOS and to the 1994 Agreement. These member states directly fund the operations of the Secretariat. They include most of the world?s developed nations, island nations, and others among the 188 independent countries which are members of the United Nations. Notably absent are the United States and Canada, which are the only developed coastal states not represented. The Council is a 36-member subset of the Assembly representatives selected through a somewhat involved process designed to achieve a balanced representation of the specific interests of the members. Ultimate responsibility for the Authority?s actions resides in the Assembly, but most initiatives originate in the Council. Also included in the Authority are two subsidiary advisory bodies, the Finance Committee, which reviews the Secretariat?s budget, and the Legal and Technical Commission, which evaluates claims and drafts technical regulations. The Secretariat itself includes a staff of about 30, including 15 highly qualified and competent attorneys, accountants, engineers, and scientists. Details describing the composition and activities of these bodies can be found at the Authority?s website (http://www.isa.org.jm).

Jan 1, 2000

By Sang-Mook Lee

The Manus back-arc basin behind the New Britain Trench is one of the major sites of active seafloor hydrothermal vent-fields which are considered to be modern-day analogue of felsic volcanic-hosted polymetallic massive sulfide deposits abundant in ancient geological record. Many of these deposits represent multi-million dollar resources, and yet very little are known about the fundamental processes leading to their formation. In November 2000 January 2001, the PACMANUS hydrothermal system in this region will be targeted by the Ocean Drilling Program Leg 193 to investigate the internal anatomy. A number of observations that suggest that the tectonic, magmatic and hydrothermal processes in the eastern Manus basin spreading center are unusual in that they can not be explained by a simple back-arc opening due to subduction of the New Britain Trench. Geochemistry of submarine volcanoes in the eastern Manus basin, for instance, shows affinity to arc rather than back-arc type volcanoes. Yet these submarine volcanoes lie too faraway from the Benioff-Wadati zone. One hypothesis is that the magmatic and subsequent hydrothermal activity of this region is a direct result of the irregularities in the deep crust and upper mantle structure and that the tectonic process is controlled by the sharp inflection of the New Britain Trench. According to this hypothesis, the two major southeast-trending strike-slip faults in the eastern Manus Basin, Djaul and Weitin Faults, should extend farther down and join to the New Britain Trench. They would form a transform arm of the triple junction with the New Britain Trench southeast of New Britain Island and southwest of Bougainville Island forming the other two arms. A trench-trench-transform triple junction can not be stable over time, and therefore a slight change in the plate velocity may lead to a dramatic change in the configuration of the plate boundaries. If so, the instability of the triple junction may cause large tectonic deformations, such as mantle uplift under the Manus basin due to mantle rupturing by transform faults, and therefore may explain the arc-style volcanism and unusual compositions of hydrothermal deposits in the eastern Manus basin.

Jan 1, 2000

By James M. Cairns

Deep Sea Minerals Inc. (DSM) is a high technology marine minerals and biotechnology corporation. The corporation is currently engaged in a worldwide leasing program to acquire exclusive rights in specific Economic Exclusive Zones (EEZ?s) that DSM?s marine geologists have identified as prospective targets for seabed mines of copper, zinc, gold, and silver. In the last two years the corporation has assembled an international team, including some of the world?s leading marine research scientists and engineers, and has created strategic partnerships and alliances with world-class engineering and mining groups. Development of a marine mining venture has key requirements in common with most other mining ventures. These include financing, deposit location, property acquisition, deposit delineation, and permitting, as well as the collection, transportation, processing and marketing of the ore itself. DSM has made progress on all of these fronts, which is outlined in a general way in this presentation. Financing for the venture is clearly the first big hurdle to overcome. Deep seabed mining involves new technologies and significant up-front capital investment. Less than fifteen years ago, such financing would probably have impossible to achieve, given classical business models. However, with the spectacular success of high technology ventures in the areas of electronics, software, and biotechnology, new business models and investment strategies have evolved which put relatively high evaluations on intellectual property and exhibit relatively high confidence in new ways of doing things. DSM is taking full advantage of these changes in venture capital markets in its financial planning.

Jan 1, 2000

By Derek V. Ellis

This article is a summary, with documentation and references, of recent global developments in identifying environmental issues affecting the marine mining industry. It is recognised that marine mining for various products occurs at various depths from shallow water (e.g. aggregate and diamond mining) potentially to great depths (e.g. metalliferous muds, and manganese crusts and nodules). Nevertheless there are environmental issues in common, even though the options for resolutions will vary greatly. The point of this review is to identify the issues, so that where site-specific resolutions are considered, it is possible to draw on experience with the issues elsewhere. Related mining issues, e.g. tailings effluent quality, orebody geochemistry, are mentioned where relevant but are not detailed in this article, although obviously they are a part of there solutions to the environmental issues. The environmental issues and their resolutions are important - on the basis of the ethic of not creating more impact than is inevitable, and the long-term financial and social costs at a mine-site of not getting the resolutions right.

Jan 1, 2000

By Thomas Kuhn, Anna Wegorzewski

"INTRODUCTIONPolymetallic nodules from the Clarion and Clipperton Zone (CCZ) within the equatorial NE Pacific Ocean show high concentration of economic important strategic metals such as Ni, Cu, Co, Mo and Rare Earth Elements (REE). The content of those metals in nodules is depending on (i) the supply during individual growing periods, (ii) the environment conditions as well as (iii) on different manganese minerals, which occur in nodules. The incorporation of the metals can vary within the structure (incorporated into the structure / over vacancies of the structure) and this can be relevant for the further metallurgical treatment.Mineralogy of Mn-nodules from the CCZ and the incorporation of metalsManganese nodules consist of nm to µm thick layer growth structures (LGS) of different genetic origin (hydrogenetic/suboxic-diagenetic). Those LGS form due to the precipitation of Mn-and Fe-(oxy) hydroxide colloids from the oxygen rich near-bottom water and/or pore water (hydrogenetic growth; Halbach et al., 1988) or from suboxic (depleted in O2 <5µmol O2/l; Hein and Koschinsky 2013)) near-bottom water/pore water (suboxicdiagenetic growth; Halbach et al., 1988; Wegorzewski and Kuhn, 2014).In general, metals dissolved in seawater will be adsorbed and complexed on the oxide surfaces according to their different surface charge. The surface charge of the Mn-Fe (oxy) hydroxides depends on the pHzpc (zpc: zero point of charge). In seawater dissolved hydrated cations (Ni2+, Cu2+, Co2+) are adsorbed preferentially on the negatively charged Mn-oxide (MnO2 -) surface (pHzpc 2.8). In contrast, negatively and neutrally charged complexes (e.g., Ti(OH4); REE(CO3)2 -, MoO4 2-) are adsorbed on the surface of Fe-oxy hydroxide colloids (FeOOH+) which have a slightly positively charged surface (pHzpc 8.5; Stumm and Morgan, 1981; Koschinsky and Halbach 1995)."

Jan 1, 2017

By Lu Jun

Up to now, much data on marine minerals, as well as on marine geochemistry, have been accumulated. Modem computer databases provide optimum flexibility and power for manipulating these data. The best worldwide marine mineral database is currently the Marine Minerals Bibliography and Geochemical Data Base created by Carla Moore et al. at the National Geophysical Data Center in the United States. In fact, in the course of studying marine minerals and geochemistry we may collect not only digital-character type data but also graph and image (black-white, grey and color image) data types. For instance, correlation diagram between chemical compositions of minerals, spectroscopic graphs, (e.g. infrared spectra, Mossbauer spectra, etc.), grey or color images from both optical and electron micro- scopes (scanning or transmission electron microscopes) as well as seabed photographs. Charles L. Morgan et al. (1993) reported that 10,000 photographs and some video images of the seabed in the Clarion-Clipperton region of the northeastern tropical Pacific have been collected by the Ocean Minerals Company. If both graphic and analytical information were stored in a database, it would be very useful and convenient to marine geologists. This system would not only be able to search for all the data based on one parameter, but also for both size and composition distributions. If possible, geostatistical methods could be combined with fractal dimensional methods. Of course, this would require enormous efforts. Before multimedia technology emerged, it was very difficult to create image databases. The emergence of large-capacity compact discs, high-speed central processing units, and high-speed digital signal processing techniques makes it possible to establish multimedia database management systems (DBMS), image-text DBMS, that involves graphs, text, images, and sound. In order to store image fields in a DBMS, we have to take into account two problems: (1) image access format and (2) image compression code standard.

Jan 1, 1994

By Lars-Kristian Trellevik, Jan Arvid Ingulfsen

Swire Seabed is dedicated to being at the forefront of the Autonomous Subsea Revolution. The company is currently working along and developing operational, technical and market strategies where autonomous technology is the driving force. Swire Seabed’s vessel Seabed Constructor is currently mobilized and operating eight Hugin AUVs and 6 Surface going USVs. This significant and revolutionary spread is owned by Ocean Infinity. Ocean Infinity and Swire Seabed is currently involved in the search for the missing MH370 – in about 3 months the vessel and autonomous spread have fine combed an area of deep sea floor spanning over more the 100 000 km2 . With such a considerable spread with a depth rating of 6000 meter – Swire Seabed and Ocean Infinity is challenging long held paradigms in subsea mapping and resource surveys. Highly accurate and precise data can be acquired for large areas in record time, and at a comparatively much reduced cost. As one earlier required several vessels and associated crews and logistical support – Swire Seabed and Ocean infinity are now able to operate a large number of AUVs and USVs, through technological advances in automatic data-processing and interpretation, from a single offshore vessel. This opens up vast possibilities for emerging markets such as subsea-minerals. Swire Seabed is also developing strong collaborative relationships with academic institutions. Along with UIB Swire Seabed is developing methodology for deep sea geological and geophysical resource searches applying AUVs at an industrial scale – this work is based on UIBs groundbreaking work and significant experience in the same fields. In particular Swire Seabed and K.G Jebsen Centre for Deep Sea Research (UIB) have developed methodologies for conducting detailed Seep-Searches at a large geographical scale. UIB and Swire Seabed is further pursuing a formalized long term relationship for academic and industrial cooperation and exchange in AUV operation and methodology development. Whilst K.G Jebsen Centre for deep sea research have been involved in basig deep sea research for years, Swire Seabed have specialized in cost-effective heavy duty operations in water depths greater the 3500 meters. This collaboration affords the subsea mining community a unique pool of both insight and operational capacity.

Jan 1, 2018