That is the view of marine geologist and geophysicist Peter A. Rona of the department of geological sciences and the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Rona, a sea-floor mineral resources consultant to the United Nations, has spent more than 40 years exploring the oceans. He published an overview of current work entitled "Resources of the Seafloor" in the international journal Science Jan. 31.
One of Rona's discoveries is a metal-rich mound the size and shape of the Houston Astrodome two-and-a-half miles under the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. "At least 50,000 years in the making, the mound is composed largely of combinations of the metals copper, iron, zinc, gold and silver. It was produced by jets of hot, metal-rich sea water," he said.
Rona, who continues to dive and has logged research expeditions aboard 11 of the world's 13 deep-diving human-occupied submersible research vessels, said the oceans are no longer considered simply containers for minerals washed off the continents. "Before the discovery of plate tectonics the oceans were thought of as big bathtubs," he said. "Now we know that the earth's crust, most of it under the ocean, is cracked into plates that move and allow heat and materials from the earth's interior to escape. As result we know that most of the minerals on the sea floor probably come from sources under the sea floor."
In fact, Rona said, there is probably as much water circulating under the sea floor as there is in the oceans themselves. "Cold, dense sea water seeps for miles downward through the crust
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Contact: Bill Haduch
bhaduch@ur.rutgers.edu
732-932-7084
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
30-Jan-2003