Hunting for treasure on the ocean floor

Dominion Post

TREASURE HUNT: New Zealand geologist Cornel de Ronde (inset) predicted there was gold in South Pacific waters, now serious players like Nautilus are using the University of Hawaii exploration ship Kilo Moana to prospect for deposits.

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A hi-tech gold rush is building in the South Pacific and, as Michael Field reports, serious players are spending big money.  

New Zealand geologist Cornel de Ronde used to look toward the South Pacific and say: "There's gold in them thar waters."

His prophecy went unheeded for about 10 years but now serious players with big money are on the hunt.

At stake, in the waters of New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji and around the potentially disputed continental shelf boundaries of the three, are high-grade gold, copper, zinc, lead and silver.

Nautilus Minerals, which is Australian-dominated but listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, joined an expedition out of Nuku'alofa last week to check out the potentially lucrative Valu Fa Ridge in the Lau Basin near the Fiji-Tonga boundary.

It is also eyeing prospects further south in the Kermadec back-arc off New Zealand.

Rival Neptune Minerals, which is also Australian-controlled but listed on London's secondary market, said last week it was preparing to file a mining licence application in New Zealand.

It is seeking "seafloor massive sulphide" (SMS) deposits on the Rumble II Seamount, 300 kilometres north of East Cape.

Dr de Ronde of GNS Science in Wellington notes that these "very serious players" are benefiting, to a large degree, from data that New Zealand scientists have been collecting for about a decade.

The scientists were among the first to discover that deep underwater hydro-thermal vents were creating mineral-rich chimneys in vast fields.

"I said then, I envisaged this being a big gold rush," he told BusinessDay. "It's the last frontier for exploration. The oceans are so largely unexplored."

Neptune, in its half-year results last week, said it had found two new SMS zones at Rumble II. It had begun work on an engineering study on how to get at the minerals and launched "Project Trident", a programme of SMS exploration, this year using survey and sampling ships off New Zealand.

Chief executive Simon McDonald said the company would focus on lodging its first mining licence.

"The company still aims to conduct trial mining by 2010."

Neptune says it is now undertaking a baseline environmental impact assessment in the area.

It has also lodged three new prospecting applications over a total area of 84,880 square kilometre near the undersea Monowai volcano on the Kermadec Arc and along the Colville Ridge.

Neptune acknowledges it is benefiting from the New Zealand government work, calling it "significant academic research".

"We are very excited about the potential to develop this untapped natural resource," Mr McDonald says in a company publication.

"New Zealand is a great place to be, not only for its mineral prospectivity but also because of the supportive government, which has existing appropriate legislation in place to assist development whilst safeguarding the environment."

Nautilus has become the world leader in undersea mining, exploiting SMS data collected by Australian government scientists in Papua New Guinea waters.

It has spent US$310 million to date developing its Solwara 1 mining project over 186,000 square kilometres in the Bismarck Sea.

It says the data on the Valu Fa Ridge, 100 kilometres west of Nuku'alofa, has revealed "high-grade mineralisation might be present" and it wants to use its "strategic first mover advantage" and go after the minerals.

In Tonga last week 10 Nautilus staff joined the University of Hawaii exploration ship Kilo Moana, which Nautilus has chartered to survey the Valu Fa, 2000 metres below the surface.

Nautilus official Paula Taumoepeau told the Matangi Tonga website that the first phase would involve mapping and surveying the seafloor, environmental monitoring, oceanographic work and water quality studies of the exploration areas.

"If we find minerals in commercial quantity during the exploration or prospecting phase, we intend to apply to the government for a mining licence."

One potential problem lurking between Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand is that no continental shelf boundary line has been defined, as required by the United Nations Law of the Sea. No treaties have been signed but Tonga has historical claims to the Southern Lau group of islands, now part of Fiji.

Several years ago Suva officials suggested that Minerva Reef, 400 kilometres southeast of Nuku'alofa, was Fijian.

In 1971 a group of Americans took barges of sand there, built a small tower and raised the flag of the Republic of Minerva. The man who became Tonga's king, George V, sailed there on a government boat and hauled down the flag, raising the Tongan standard.

At the time the dispute was regarded as an amusing South Seas tale, but scientists, and now miners, know that at stake is part of a vast goldfield.

- © Fairfax NZ News