Seabed material commodity and resource summaries

Abstract

Over the past five years, research on marine minerals conducted by the Marine Policy Center at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has attempted to gain a better understanding of the process by which these minerals are brought into productive use in society. This technical report results from concentrated research conducted by a research team under the primary sponsorship of the National Sea Grant College Program. This report provides background documentation for the recent publication: J.M. Broadus, 1987, "Seabed Materials," Science 235(4791): 853-860. It is organized to lead the user directly to sources that may provide further information on particular seabed materials. Several presentations of data in the report are of use in understanding the fundamentals of marine mineral markets including: descriptions of the size of the marine mineral resource base and the size of the markets for onshore and offshore sources of marine minerals; price series for minerals with prospective seabed sources; composite prices for four marine mineral types; consumption and price "elasticities" of mineral reserves; trends in mineral exploration inputs and U.S. federal government expenditures for marine nonfuel resources; maps of existing, proposed, or past entitlements for marine hard minerals; a list of known marine polymetallic sulfide (MPS) deposits and reported grades; world trade flows in zinc and copper; the value of apparent consumption in the United States in relation to imports and recycling; and a bibliography.