MIDAS_Managing Impacts of Deep-seA reSource exploitation

The MIDAS project - Managing Impacts of Deep-seA reSource exploitation - is a multidisciplinary research programme investigating the environmental impacts of extracting mineral and energy resources from the deep-sea environment. This includes the exploitation of materials such as polymetallic sulphides, manganese nodules, cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts, methane hydrates and the potential mining of rare earth elements.

The deep seafloor is rich in mineral resources that will likely be targeted by the mining industry in the near future. These mining operations will generate large scale disturbance at the seafloor with unknown consequences and potentially slow recovery. Within the projects MIDAS and JPIO, we will investigate how food web functions are altered following a mining disturbance using in situ experimentation and food web modeling.