Technology is the key for development of a sustainable and safe new industry within deep sea minerals. Glomar is maximizing the transfer of relevant experience from the deep-water industries to mitigate the technology introduction risk to this new deep sea minerals industry.
For Polymetallic nodules, Vessel based multibeam sonars in combination with AUV mounted multibeam sonars will be used for overall topography and large area abundance mapping. The traditional Box Corer will be replaced by an ROV carried Digital Box Coring system. This will enable a more efficient mapping of nodule abundance, reducing the environmental footprint on the seabed and significantly reduce vessel days. In addition, an ROV carried sampling storage skid, will allow for the collection of both nodules, geotechnical and environmental in the same operation, where up to 100 sampling sites can be accommodated during one ROV dive.
For Manganese Nodule production Glomar will maximise the relevant experience transfer from the deep water oil and gas industry to mitigate the technology risk to this new deep sea minerals industry. Both the collection technology and vertical transportation technology are selected to support minimum environmental footprint, industrial efficiency and robust long term exposure to the deep sea environment.
