The Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) is a very large area of the Pacific Ocean located between Hawaii and Mexico. A deep sea abyssal plain, it is scattered with nodules of highly valuable minerals. These nodules are aggregates of minerals such as iron and manganese hydroxides, materials that are predicted to be in increasingly high demand as the global shift to green technology intensifies over the coming decade.

Because of the high concentration of nodules in the CCZ, many regions are being explored for the potential to mine them, by sending down autonomous rovers that will scoop up the sediment and nodules and transport them to the surface. One of the main concerns is that mining activity would destroy this fragile ecosystem that has been likely been persisting unchanged for millions of years. This has led to a flurry of activity to try and understand what is actually down there, and how the ecosystem functions before any large-scale activity starts.

Two new papers which have looked at all the published records for the species recorded from the CCZ found that its sea floor is likely far more diverse than realised. They estimate that between 6,000-8,000 species are waiting to be discovered, but also note that this is likely an underestimate.

To try and fill some of these gaps, a team of researchers at the Natural History Museum have been delving into the data that has been collected on the wildlife that has been found in the CCZ over the past few decades. What they have found is a range of issues with how this data has been collected and stored by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which is the organisation responsible for the management of mining operations on the seafloor.

“It strikes me as irresponsible to be relying on the database in its current form” to assess the impact of mining on the sea-floor environment, says Muriel Rabone, a data scientist at the Natural History Museum in London, who led the analysis.

This has potential impacts on how the diversity of these regions is calculated, which in turn has a knock-on effect with how mining in these regions will be granted and regulated.

Based on the findings from these papers, the researchers have set out a number of recommendations for how to now move forward. The first step would be fully utilise the global biodiversity database known as Darwin Core, but also include cleaning up the data that already exists and ensuring that any new data added is cross referenced with other species databases to make sure it is as accurate as possible.

To read a review by the Natural History Museum click here