Late Twentieth-Century Manganese Nodule Activities

In the post-UNCLOS III period, manganese nodule-related activities by the Industrial Consortia in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone declined prior to most of them abandoning it altogether. Similar activities there by the National Consortia persisted for longer and some have continued up to the time of writing. In the South Pacific, almost all the interest in nodules in the 1980s and 1990s was in the EEZs of the island states there, principally in the southwestern Pacific. Of these, the Cook Islands received the greatest attention. In the Indian Ocean, the area identified as being of interest in the CIOB in the early 1980s received continuing attention from the Govt. of India, which was awarded a mine site there by the International Seabed Authority. There was little or no economic interest in Atlantic nodules during the period under review.