Mid-Atlantic Ridge manganese sea nodule mining (Kennecott, 1970s)

Physical-object demonstration. Nodules from 6,000 ft depth, rich in Cu/Ni/Mn. Kennecott studied mining feasibility; Nick Grant proposed launching a manganese-metallurgy industry.

[Tom produces a manganese sea nodule.] Back around 1975, some companies like Kennecott Copper were big on this. In the Atlantic Ocean near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, if you go down about 6000 feet, you will find the floor is loaded with billions of tons of that. It's extremely rich in copper, which is why Kennecott Copper was interested in it. If you want to see a cross section, if you go to the Infinite Corridor, you'll see one — it has lots of nickel and copper, but it's mostly manganese. You could throw that straight into a furnace and start refining the metal. The only problem is, it's six thousand feet deep. They were looking at mining it in the 70s, because they're scattered all over the seabed, including off the coast of California. I got that from Professor Clark, who got it at some open house at MIT in the mid-70s.