What next I wonder. Do you think the Ocean should be left alone? At first I checked the date of these articles thinking it was just an April Fools article.This

could

World’s first seabed gold, copper, silver mine to begin production in 2019

Since first proposed, its Solwara 1 project has met with some opposition mostly from environmentalists, who fear the aquatic ecosystem could be severely affected by mining the seabed.

http://www.mining.com/worlds-first-seabed-mine-to-begin-production-in-2019/

The terrifying robots set to mine the seabed: Machines to search for gold and other precious metals on the ocean floor

The deep-sea robots will mine mineral deposits in Papua New Guinea in 2019

Land-based mineral stores are becoming depleted so the ocean will be mined

The ocean floor contains minerals used to make useful devices and electronics

Some of the minerals are used to make renewable energy tech like solar cells

But deep-sea excavation may have a negative impact on deep ocean marine life, as robot mining may destroy their homes and disturb these sensitive species

May destroy it says, I would think if you are a Crab or a Fish living down there you will be slightly annoyed, to put it mildly.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4269206/The-terrifying-robots-set-seabed.html#ixzz4dALc8hnJ

Countries poised to roll out deep sea mining in new 'gold rush'

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/countries-poised-to-roll-out-deep-sea-mining-in-new-gold-rush/2500509.article

Sadly there is only one realistic solution to all these issues - and that is less humans on the planet.

Families limited to max 1 child - all families is the only way until the population falls below 2 billion

- but then do you go to war with the nations that wont?

- do you forceably sterilise the families that wont (no exceptions)?

Do you allow the larger population (India China) to spread across the world as their population density is so high to begin with? or do you enforce national boundaries? What if they are more powerful?

and what do you do with an increasing older and frail population while the population reduces?

- the final problem which would really test our humanity.

This has all bee proposed before to recover manganese nodules from the deep ocean floor. it is all too expensive and also pointless. As for the habitat of plutonic marine life, we dont know enough about it to give an opinion on the damage that could be done one way or the other

Tawnyowl, your comments about terrifying robots and land based deposits becoming depleted are just hyperbole.

A few years ago I worked with a Professor of mining Geology who in the 1950's proposed using nuclear expolsions for deep underground mining of metals. It would have worked and you could also do the nuclear testing as well. So, why didnt it catch on? 2 reasons, cost (as always) and also as soon as you start to develop these technologies other companies then start working on the reserves that they already own the rights to, the cost of the commodity you are mining falls and you are out of business so it is then back to business as usual. There are enough diamonds of 1 ct in the world to give everyone on the planet on each, to go with their Swiss watch. So why doesnt that happen- 5000 years of capitalism. Without that capitalism mankind would have become extinct.

Aa Tobyjug makes refernce to, there is a finite human population this planet can stand without destroying everything else. He quotes 2 billion but the reality is that fugure was decided upon in the past, before quite large changes to agriculture were made and that includes GM crops. The earth can cope with 5 billion people that behave but even when there were only a few million that last bit proved to be an impossibility.

Someone I know well has found enough copper and gold in Georgia to keep the world going in those metals for a good few years and there is enough tin in Cornwall to keep the world happy for ever but it is cheaper to recover it elsewhere.

Just wondering a few things.

Thought I would ask Google, seems a pretty wise chap,

Who Owns The Oceans

Because you would think, and I must admit I have not researched arguments may break out between countries as this possibly gains ground.

Perhaps they are already arguing amongst themselves as we write.

Anyway, an answer arrives as it always does. Old Mr Google never lets you down.

Who owns the oceans?

You and the rest of the 6.6 billion people swarming over Earth's face right now [source: CIA]. All of us own the oceans, and yet none of us do. It's a conundrum.

Well personally I do not want a conundrum, I may look that word up as well but I have a rough idea.

I would rather they did not attempt to mine the Ocean this way, leave things as they are, bad as they already are.

Leave the Crabs and fish, Octopus alone in their big world.Who cares about a few million tons of Gold, you cannot take it with you as they say.

So all you would be doing is bragging what you have, but will not leave this world with.

Ah,i feel slightly better now.Got to try to make sense of this madness that grips the world somehow.

Link where this info arrived from.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/oceanography/international-water.htm

It always puzzles me why Gold has the value it does, other than countries hoarding it, as an investment, therefore restricting Gold available to buy..

There are loads of Gold deposits all over the world, so it is not as if we would ever run out. There are numerous sites all over Africa being mined at the moment. Papua New Guinea i think has large deposits. Australia has only touched a small percentage of the mineral deposits available.

If the gold was necessary for some industrial or scientific use - then maybe yes

If its just for the wealthy to hide away in vaults - then NO

So when all the gold has been taken from the vaults and used for constructive purposes, lets consider it.

gold is very useful, about 15 tons of it are shoved into peoples mouths as fillings every year, twice that used in electronics and twice that in jewellery. More than 50% of its production is just buried again (in vaults)

Gold was probaby the first metal ever used by man, stone age artifacts exist so it has always been a measure of that intangible, currency. To understand the desire for gold you must understand the history of money. Read a short paper written by Graham Birch when he worked for Blackrock, it sums it up brilliantly. The really worrying thing about placing a value on anything, including commodities like gold is how much we all rely upon everyone else in the world accepting the same. this has been the case since the copper age (a few hundred years before the bronze age) Money, more than language makes us human as it shows the grasping of conceptual thinking where it could be argued that all other species can communicate by some sort of language but none of them can either do algebra or conceptualise arguments.