science
Scattered across parts of the deep ocean floor lie potato-sized lumps packed with metals used in batteries, and they have ignited a fierce mining debate.
Polymetallic nodules are the name for these metal-rich lumps scattered across parts of the deep ocean floor, formed slowly over millions of years as minerals precipitate out of seawater and accumulate in layers around a small core, eventually growing into potato-sized rocks packed with metals like manganese, nickel, cobalt, and copper that are valuable for manufacturing batteries.
Coral pearls are not a recognized geological or biological term describing anything found on the seabed in this way. Seafloor icebergs is simply not a real phenomenon, since icebergs are floating masses of freshwater ice, not mineral deposits resting on the ocean floor.
Critics of deep-sea mining warn that scooping up these nodules at scale could devastate fragile ecosystems that have barely been studied and took millions of years to develop, making this one of the more contentious frontiers in the push for battery materials.
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