Global negotiations over the future of the deep sea are underway this week in Kingston, Jamaica where member states of the International Seabed Authority have gathered to continue shaping a regulatory ...

In a world hungry for crucial resources, China may not be poised to start deep-sea mining but it is planting seeds for such operations in a meticulously planned economic and geopolitical strategy. The ...

This story is part of the Grist series Unearthed: The Mining Issue, which examines the global race to extract critical minerals for the clean energy transition. It was produced by Grist and ...

Humanity has only explored 0.001% of the deep sea, according to a May 2025 study.Getty Images Reporter The Trump Administration signed an executive order late last month aiming to fast-track approval ...

A new study indicates that deep-sea mining could threaten at least 30 species of sharks, rays and chimaeras, many of which are already at risk of extinction. The authors found that seabed sediment ...

The Trump administration announced this past week that it has entered talks with the Cook Islands to research and develop seabed mineral resources. The Polynesian archipelago is one of only a handful ...

The deep sea is a distinctive environment, distinguished from surface waters by darkness, cold and immense pressures. Global data reveal how much more connected deep-sea life is than life in the ...

An underwater gold rush may be on the horizon — or rather, a rush to mine the seafloor for manganese, nickel, cobalt and other minerals used in electric vehicles, solar panels and more. Meanwhile, ...

Could lumpy metallic rocks in the deepest, darkest reaches of the ocean be making oxygen in the absence of sunlight? Some scientists think so, but others have challenged the claim that so-called "dark ...

This Deep-Sea discovery is so new it’s rewriting the map of life on Earth and it could reshape our understanding of the climate system. More than 9,000 meters below the Pacific Ocean, scientists have ...