Ch. 1— Summary, Issues, and Options * 17 



The job of exploring the U.S. EEZ is 

 immense, difficult, and expensive . . . 

 [it] is not an activity that is likely to be 

 undertaken by the private sector in re- 

 sponse to market forces. 



exist to permit meaningful estimates of future eco- 

 nomic potential to be made. More data about the 

 physical characteristics of cobalt crusts and poly- 

 metallic sulfides are needed before mining concepts 

 can be refined and mining costs estimated. An in- 

 ternational consortium is studying the potential for 

 mining cobalt-rich crusts in the Johnston Island 

 EEZ, but near-term incentives for mining crusts 

 and sulfides do not exist. 



It is risky to attempt to rank the future potential 

 for development of marine minerals in the EEZ be- 

 cause of shortfalls in resource data. Nevertheless, 

 an assessment based on what is known of the na- 

 ture and extent of the mineral occurrences, cou- 

 pled with insights into mineral commodity markets 

 and trends, suggests the following rank "guesti- 

 mate" for the probable order of development: 



1 . sand and gravel 



2. precious metal placers, 



3. titanium and chromite placers and phos- 

 phorite, 



4. ferromanganese nodules, 



5. cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts, and 



6. polymetallic sulfides. 



TECHNOLOGIES FOR EXPLORING THE SEABED 



The job of exploring the U.S. EEZ is immense, 

 difficult, and expensive. The job is not an activity 

 that is likely to be undertaken by the private sector 

 in response to market forces. In its initial reconnais- 

 sance stages, it is largely a government responsi- 

 bility. As knowledge narrows the targets of oppor- 

 tunity to those of economic potential, commercial 

 interest may then motivate entrepreneurs to explore 

 in more detail. But without the first efforts by the 

 Federed Government, both the scientific commu- 

 nity and industry will be unable or unwUling to 

 launch an effective, broad- scale exploration 

 program. 



Technological capabilities for exploring the sea- 

 bed in detail are currently available and in use. 

 These range from reconnaissance technologies that 

 provide relatively coarse, general information about 

 very large areas to site-specific technologies that 

 provide information about increasingly smaller 

 areas of the seafloor. A common strategy is to use 

 these technologies in the manner of a zoom lens, 

 that is, by focusing on progressively smaller areas 

 with increasing detail. 



Among the reconnaissance technologies available 

 are echo-sounding instruments capable of accu- 

 rately determining the depth of the seafloor and 



producing computer-drawn bathymetric charts 

 showing the form and topography of the bottom. 

 Side-looking sonar devices produce photo-like im- 

 ages that can reveal interesting features and pat- 

 terns on the seafloor. These technologies can be 

 combined in one piece of equipment or used simul- 

 taneously to survey broad swaths of the seafloor 

 while a vessel is underway, thus providing near- 

 perfect registry between the sonar and bathymet- 

 ric data. Broad-scale coverage of side-looking so- 

 nar imagery for most of the U.S. EEZ soon will 

 be available from the U.S. Geological Survey 

 (USGS). However, high-resolution, multi-beam 

 bathymetric data collected by NOAA will taike 

 much longer to acquire. Moreover, the future of 

 NOAA's bathymetric charting program is uncer- 

 tain, since the Navy considers the data to be of suffi- 

 cient quality to classify for national security reasons. 



Seismic technologies, which are used extensively 

 by the offshore petroleum industry, can detect struc- 

 tural and stratigraphic features below the seabed 

 which can aid geological interpretation. New three- 

 dimensional seismic techniques, although very ex- 

 pensive, can enhance the usefulness of seismic in- 

 formation. Gravimeters can detect differences in 

 the density of rocks, leading to estimates of crustal 

 rock types and thicknesses. Magnetometers provide 



