Prospecting and exploration for manganese nodules has, as its ultimate
objective, the discovery and delineation of an area of the ocean floor
with reserves of sufficient quantity and quality to support a mining
operation under existing economic, technical and political conditions.
While prospecting concentrates primari- lyon the collection of
geological information, an exploration programme includes other
activities that relate to the develop- ment of technology, financial
analysis of the prospect and environmental protection. Such work on a
deposit in turn leads to the development of a mine-site. The mine-site
concept brings together information in a way that recognizes the
interplay among a number of dynamic factors which must satisfy a set of
technical and economic conditions. Defining a mine-site, therefore, is a
process of accounting for those factors. Throughout the years of
meetings of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea,
many questions arose about ocean mine-sites. Two related topics in
particular received attention: the total number of available mine-sites,
and the amount of area necessary for a mining operation. Both of these
topics have been subject to a great deal of speculation, and even with
the best available information, there remains a degree of uncertainty
that arises from both incomplete knowledge and natural variability in
the seabed and the resource, and different technology and production
objectives. For example, estimates of the size of the area necessary for
an ocean mine-site vary even when made by the same company.
