Nautilus steps up search for Tongan minerals [1]
Monday, September 22, 2008 - 20:00. Updated on Thursday, September 11, 2014 - 15:41.
On a voyage of discovery looking for the copper, gold, zinc and silver, known to be in the sea bed near Tonga's undersea volcanoes, Nautilus Minerals Tonga Ltd. started its 2008 Tongan offshore mineral exploration campaign on Saturday September 20.
Paula Taumoepeau, the Nautilus Tonga Country Manager, said that the Nautilus mineral exploration ship, the Nor Sky arrived in Tonga about mid-day on Saturday and after refilling and replenishing their supplies sailed to the south west.
Jonathan Lowe, the Nautilus Exploration Manager who is based in Brisbane, Australia, was in Tonga to welcome the Nor Sky and to see them off on what he refers to as their 'voyage of discoveries'.
Mining industry
Jonathan had no doubt that Nautilus mineral exploration in Tonga will be successful. Based on the data collected so far from three other exploration voyages that they have assisted financially, Jonathan was certain that a number of factors are converging for the establishment of mining industry in the small islands of the South West Pacific.
Jonathan believed that the technology is there and it had been used by oil companies to look for oil, "but no one ever thought about looking for minerals at that depth of 2.5 kilometres.
"Nautilus has the vision, and of course the support of the island governments such as Papua New Guinea and Tonga, and now we have the support of investors, we have the money," he said.
"It has taken us about six months to organise this voyage. The ship is Norwegian, the engineers who operate the electromagnetic geophysical tools are British, the scientists, geologists, and biologists are ours and the crew are Asians."
Jonathan said that the impact of mine exploration on the sea bed is different from mining on land, where it will have an impact on the land and on the life of the community. He said that they were looking at mining at a depth of 2.5km on the sea bed where there are believed to be few living things and they will be extracting metals from piles of mud on the sea bed rather than excavating.
The minerals are left on the sea bed by old volcanic activity. He said that a volcanic eruption brings to the surface mud and minerals but as it drifted upward towards the surface the mud solidified. "These pillars of mud of several meters eventually collapsed, so when we go along with our metal detectors we can identify the actual location."
Known deposits
Jonathan showed us a map of certain areas of the Tongan seabed where they had already located metals, "mainly copper, gold, zinc and silver."
Unlike mining on land where miners have to work underground, during the sea bed mine exploration scientists will follow the movement of a robot, which has been lowered armed with three high resolution cameras and strong flash lights, and a powerful metal detector. "The ship follows the movement of the robotic vehicle and it has to be able to steady itself despite the waves to pinpoint an exact location, because they have to bring up the vehicle with the cameras then lower another vehicle, capable of scooping up mud and metals."
On this voyage of the Nor Sky there are two Tongan geologists on board.
Paula said that the Nor Sky would be exploring in the south west of Tongatapu until November 4.