May 2006
Technology in the (Ocean) Trenches
An underwater robot digs for gold.
By Patric Hadenius
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| Displays superimpose a gold-digging robot's position with ocean topography as deep as two kilometers. (Courtesy of Nautilus Materials.) |
Heavy-duty mining robots can now dig for gold in rocky, underwater landscapes at depths of as much as two kilometers. Earlier this year, a Canadian company, Nautilus Minerals, dispatched a specially designed underwater mining robot to conduct the world's first commercial deep-sea search for gold and copper, off the coast of Papua New Guinea in a mountainlike landscape 1,600 meters below sea level.
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology