What Are Critical Minerals and Why are They Important for Climate Change?
"Critical minerals" are raw materials used to extract metals and trans-metals that are considered essential to modern civilisation. Although many are often quite rare and difficult to source (like cobalt, selenium, tellurium, platinum group metals, and rare earth elements), they also include more common base metals, such as copper, nickel, and zinc.
As we move to low-carbon energy, many of these minerals are essential for hitting our carbon emissions targets to combat global climate change. While these critical minerals are currently sourced entirely from land-based mining, their supply is threatened by both geopolitics and dwindling reserves.
Where are Critical Minerals Found on the Seafloor?
Since the 1970s, we've known that abundant sources of these critical minerals are present on the seafloor. However, there are many challenges to be faced in the exploitation of these resources. These include their exploration and extraction, as well as mitigating the environmental harm.
Types of Minerals
Cover hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of the abyssal plains and are potential sources of nickel, copper, manganese, and iron.
Cover large areas of raised seabed, like seamounts and submarine ridges. They are potential sources of rare earth elements, tellurium, and cobalt.
Formed by underwater volcanic activity and hydrothermal processes. They are rich in copper, selenium, cobalt, gold, silver, and zinc.
What Aspects of Seabed Minerals does NOC Research?
Here at NOC, we're engaged in research into three aspects of seabed minerals:
- How they form geologically and where they are preserved globally.
- What environmental impacts future exploitation may have.
- How we might establish methods and technologies to monitor any future extraction, to ensure it's done sustainably and with minimum environmental impact.
We do not research aspects of exploitation or seabed mining. We believe those are best left to industry and the regulators to determine.
Research Projects
Project ULTRA is a UKRI-NERC-funded strategic science project. It's dedicated to understanding how large hydrothermal seafloor massive sulphide systems are generated at tectonic-spreading mid-ocean ridges. The research, led by Prof. Bramley Murton, involves geological studies of core drilled from boreholes on the seafloor next to sulphide mounds. These mounds formed on rocks that were once part of the Earth's mantle. We also mapped and sampled the surface exposure of the deposits from remotely operated vehicles and imaged them below the seafloor using novel geophysical methods.
Learn MoreSmartEx is also a UKRI-NERC-funded strategic science project. It's dedicated to understanding how deep-sea ecology may be affected by disturbances from seabed mining. The work involves biological and habitat studies of areas where test mining was done back in the 1970s. We're assessing disturbances and potential recovery rates from disturbed and non-disturbed areas alike, using autonomous underwater vehicles, remotely operated vehicles, and extensive sampling and in-situ experiments.
Learn MoreProject TRIDENT is a UKRI-funded Horizon Europe partnership research project. It's dedicated to developing technological solutions for monitoring, forecasting, and mitigating disturbance and serious harm from industrial activities on the deep seabed. This ambitious project involves developing mobile and static seabed and water column assets that will measure various disturbances. They will report them in real time back to a "traffic light" system that will generate a digital twin and forecast. The system is due to be tested at TRL-6 (in deep water) in 2027. This will involve three vessels coordinating and deploying autonomous platforms to simulate disturbances, which the monitoring system will then measure and forecast.
Learn MoreScientific Publications
Long-term impact and biological recovery in a deep-sea mining track
Jones, Daniel O.B. 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5218-1649; Arias, Maria Belen; Van Audenhaege, Loïc ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3973-029X; Blackbird, Sabena ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0942-6836; Boolukos, Corie; Bribiesca-Contreras, Guadalupe ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8163-8724; Copley, Jonathan T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3333-4325; Dale, Andrew ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9256-7770; Evans, Susan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1756-0568; Fleming, Bethany F.M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6608-2841; Gates, Andrew R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2798-5044; Grant, Hannah; Hartl, Mark G.J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1208-2050; Huvenne, Veerle A.I. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7135-6360; Jeffreys, Rachel M.; Josso, Pierre; King, Lucas D.; Simon-Lledó, Erik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9667-2917; Le Bas, Tim ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2545-782X; Norman, Louisa; O’Malley, Bryan; Peacock, Thomas ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7639-0194; Shimmield, Tracy; Stewart, Eva C.D.; Sweetman, Andrew K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9547-9493; Wardell, Catherine ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5069-7905; Aleynik, Dmitry ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2066-1960; Glover, Adrian G. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9489-074X.
2025
Long-term impact and biological recovery in a deep-sea mining track.
Nature, 642.
112-118.
10.1038/s41586-025-08921-3
2025
Article
Metal preservation and mobilization in sediments at the TAG hydrothermal field, Mid‐Atlantic Ridge
Dutrieux, Adeline Marie; Lichtschlag, Anna ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8281-2165; Barriga, Fernando J. A. S.; Martins, Sofia; Milinovic, Jelena; Murton, Bramley J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1522-1191.
2023
Metal preservation and mobilization in sediments at the TAG hydrothermal field, Mid‐Atlantic Ridge.
Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 24 (6).
10.1029/2023GC010879
2023
Article
Detachment‐fault structure beneath the TAG Hydrothermal Field, Mid‐Atlantic Ridge, revealed from dense wide‐angle seismic data
Lai, Szu-Ying ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4711-514X; Bayrakci, G.; Murton, B. J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1522-1191; Minshull, T. A..
2025
Detachment‐fault structure beneath the TAG Hydrothermal Field, Mid‐Atlantic Ridge, revealed from dense wide‐angle seismic data.
Geophysical Research Letters, 52 (3).
10.1029/2024GL111464
2025
Article
What has Project ULTRA Discovered?
Project ULTRA has reported several findings in peer-reviewed papers. The main discovery is that large accumulations of seafloor massive sulphides tend to occur where mid-ocean spreading ridges host long-lived detachment faults. These faults generate a stagnant "hanging wall wedge" that is exposed to mineralising conditions over long periods. Stress fields in these geological settings provide pathways for melt to intrude the hanging wall and for fluids to circulate, depositing sulphides above and below the seafloor.
This tectonic and magmatic interplay controls the duration and frequency of hydrothermal activity, which can be recorded in seafloor sediments. We also discovered the process of sulphide weathering can lead to initial enrichments in some critical metals. It can also act as an exploration vector, pointing to the metal tenor of underlying sulphide ore bodies.
What Has SMARTEX Discovered?
SmartEx has reported the findings of the ecological response to experimental mining of ferromanganese nodules from the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific. The main discovery is that disturbances to the ecology and seafloor composition have persisted for several decades since the initial mining trials.
The team also discovered that sediment plumes, previously considered a likely major impact on the seafloor community, had limited long-term physical impacts and no detectable negative effects on animal numbers in the study area.
However, project leader Professor Dan Jones, and colleagues report some degree of recovery from the smallest and most mobile species. This work is important as it feeds into policy and procedures being drawn up by regulators and governments. This helps provide a legal framework for any future deep-sea mining activities, should they occur.
Hear from the Experts
We found some recovery of small and mobile animals living on the sediment surface. A type of large amoeba-like xenophyophore, creatures commonly found everywhere in the CCZ region, had recolonised the track areas. However, large-sized animals that are fixed to the seafloor are still very rare in the tracks, showing little signs of recovery."
What Will Project TRIDENT Achieve?
The architecture of the TRIDENT system integrates sensors into a network of fixed and mobile platforms. It's also developing a real-time subsea communication network and advanced data processing capabilities. These data are fed into a digital twin, which is developed to enable disturbance forecasting and, as a result, damage limitation and mitigation. The monitoring system is designed for scalability and to monitor disturbances across multiple time and spatial scales, ensuring comprehensive and adaptive environmental oversight.
Through these insights, Project TRIDENT aims to develop a technological solution to monitoring industrial activities in the deep sea, such as seabed mining, with the aim of preventing serious environmental harm. By integrating existing technologies and pioneering new ones, TRIDENT is constructing and demonstrating a scalable, resilient, and autonomous monitoring array. This array will be capable of operating in remote, high-pressure environments, ensuring continuous and effective oversight of deep-sea industrial activities.
The outcomes of the TRIDENT system will help inform regulators (like the International Seabed Authority) and governments (like EU member states) on the best way to approach the monitoring, and ultimately the policing, of deep seabed industrial activities.
Dive Deeper: Deep-Sea Mining
The deep ocean belongs to all of us and to the generations that will come after us. Our research works to ensure that any decisions made about its future are based on solid science, not on speculation or short-term interests.