Abstract
MARINE geologists, geochemists, biologists and other oceano-graphers have studied manganese nodules since they were first reported by Murray and Renard1 in 1891. Much has been learned (see ref. 2 for a recent review) but many aspects of their formation and growth are open to question. The Environmental Research Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has sponsored a multi-university, multi-disciplinary investigation to determine the environmental impact of manganese nodule mining. As part of the benthic baseline study of the Deep Ocean Mining Environmental Survey (DOMES), approximately 10,000 bottom photographs have been taken. I wish to report a close examination of 365 prints taken on one lowering of the camera near latitude 14°17.5′N, longitude 126°15.4′W at a depth of about 4,500m.
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References
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PAUL, A. Deep-sea bottom photographs show that benthic organisms remove sediment cover from manganese nodules. Nature 263, 50–51 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1038/263050a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/263050a0
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