By By Georgia Williams Feb 16, 2016 in Technology A new era is dawning for the international mining industry. Led by the Australian-Canadian sea floor mining company, Nautilus Minerals, miners are now looking to the sea to make their next fortune. A couple points hit home as to why deep sea mining may become increasingly attractive to the world's miners. Traditional mining uses large amounts of freshwater during extraction. With sea mining, salt water is used in the mining process, leaving more fresh water to be used for other needs. Another positive point: off land extraction doesn’t displace communities or cordon off huge areas of land like on shore mining. In December 2015, Nautilus Minerals, a mining company that’s implementing the first seafloor mining operation, “The MOSPA now operates as a more conventional material sales agreement where Tongling will pay Nautilus for a fixed proportion of copper, gold and silver in the mineralized material,” Nautilus believes land-based sources of copper are becoming scarce, and as a result of the increasing scarcity, it has become more socially and environmentally uncertain to extract these deposits. However, the company’s research has found that the seafloor holds a rich reserve of copper and other minerals, which can be mined safely. "We double the amount of copper we use every 10 years or so. The global market uses 20 million tons now, we will need 40 million tons in 2030. The question is: Where is that going to come from?" Canadian businessman and mining expert, Richard Warke, believes Nautilus and other seafloor mining companies may be onto something. With that said, Warke, who is notable for his sale of Augusta Resource Corp. and Ventana Gold Corp., remains cautiously optimistic until more research is released. “The sea mining industry has come a long way since its early days of shallow water mining,” comments Warke points out that deep sea mining comes with a new set of issues previously not encountered in the mining industry. Warke particularly highlights the technological feats that need to be accomplished in order to mine under water. “Specialized dredgers, pumps, crawlers, drills, platforms, cutters and corers are just some of the equipment that’s needed for deep sea mining,” Richard Warke continues. “Having trained personnel to operate these rigs will be an issue. I assume that exploration and extraction cost may also be an issue.” While seafloor mining has the potential to help meet demand for many minerals used worldwide, its long term environmental risks are still unknown. With that said, as the world’s land-based resources dwindle, deep sea mining may become more attractive to mining companies looking to meet international demand. In fact, seafloor mining is becoming increasingly touted as an environmentally friendly way to extract precious metals and minerals.A couple points hit home as to why deep sea mining may become increasingly attractive to the world's miners. Traditional mining uses large amounts of freshwater during extraction. With sea mining, salt water is used in the mining process, leaving more fresh water to be used for other needs. Another positive point: off land extraction doesn’t displace communities or cordon off huge areas of land like on shore mining.In December 2015, Nautilus Minerals, a mining company that’s implementing the first seafloor mining operation, inked a deep sea copper mining deal with Chinese smelting company, Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group. The two companies have been in business together since early 2012. The new deal, called Master Ores Sales and Processing Agreement or “MOSPA”, ratifies a previous three-year contract that would have seen Nautilus supplying 1.1 million tons of unrefined copper ore to the Chinese smelting company.“The MOSPA now operates as a more conventional material sales agreement where Tongling will pay Nautilus for a fixed proportion of copper, gold and silver in the mineralized material,” Nautilus told Mining.com in late 2015.Nautilus believes land-based sources of copper are becoming scarce, and as a result of the increasing scarcity, it has become more socially and environmentally uncertain to extract these deposits. However, the company’s research has found that the seafloor holds a rich reserve of copper and other minerals, which can be mined safely."We double the amount of copper we use every 10 years or so. The global market uses 20 million tons now, we will need 40 million tons in 2030. The question is: Where is that going to come from?" Mike Johnston, Nautilus CEO, explained.Canadian businessman and mining expert, Richard Warke, believes Nautilus and other seafloor mining companies may be onto something. With that said, Warke, who is notable for his sale of Augusta Resource Corp. and Ventana Gold Corp., remains cautiously optimistic until more research is released.“The sea mining industry has come a long way since its early days of shallow water mining,” comments Richard Warke . “However, I think it’s still too early to tell if deep sea mining will be the new direction of the mining industry.”Warke points out that deep sea mining comes with a new set of issues previously not encountered in the mining industry. Warke particularly highlights the technological feats that need to be accomplished in order to mine under water. “Specialized dredgers, pumps, crawlers, drills, platforms, cutters and corers are just some of the equipment that’s needed for deep sea mining,” Richard Warke continues. “Having trained personnel to operate these rigs will be an issue. I assume that exploration and extraction cost may also be an issue.”While seafloor mining has the potential to help meet demand for many minerals used worldwide, its long term environmental risks are still unknown. With that said, as the world’s land-based resources dwindle, deep sea mining may become more attractive to mining companies looking to meet international demand. More about Deepsea mining, Mining, richard warke, Nautilus minerals Deepsea mining Mining richard warke Nautilus minerals