Vast bed of metal balls found in deep sea

Well this is certainly a very cool find...

Source

Scattered along the seafloor, dense clusters of large metal lumps have been discovered by scientists trolling for deep-sea creatures between South America and Africa

The R/V Sonne, a German research ship, was several hundred miles east of Barbados when a mesh net meant to capture marine life instead brought up balls of manganese ore that were bigger than softballs. A remote camera later revealed that the seafloor was littered with these round manganese nodules, some the size of bowling balls.

"I was surprised, because this is generally not the place you think of for manganese nodules," said Colin Devey, chief scientist for the expedition and a volcanologist at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany.

A whole bunch of very round manganese balls found at 18K feet under the ocean.

They said some could be up to 10 Million years old.

The earth is such a cool place and the discoveries are still there to be made!

The origin of manganese nodules also remains a mystery. Popular ideas include chemical reactions in seawater that are boosted by microbes, similar activity at underwater hot springs and the precipitation of excess metal from seawater.

Remnants of man's past! So much history, so rich the human mind, so many mysteries of our ancestors, to be rediscovered.

All under our feet

Thanks for posting. Metallic balls could be useful to a magnetic-central energy design (Like electrons orbiting a central ennergy/neutron) Also could be useless metal balls

What a load of balls.

I think it's obvious what they are:



Mess with them and see what happens.

a reply to: Bedlam

"Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball"

originally posted by: Autorico
a reply to: Bedlam

"Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball"

You mess with the ball, you get the Horta.

I recognise two of them straightaway!!
If you get my drift!

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Strange.... elemental Manganese is not found in nature, but polymetallic nodules containing Iron and Manganese found on the ocean floor is not unheard of. So I have to wonder why Colin Devey is "surprised".

a reply to: Vasa Croe

I read the title as meatballs the first time i read it.

"Vast bed of meatballs"

a reply to: Bedlam

Nasty bath 'pearls' from the 70's full of horrid liquid inside a squishy meltable shell?

Those probably actually are those masquerading in a sci-fi B-movie as giant spider triffids from Mars eggs.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

I read about those the other day, they are rather fascinating, probably some perfectly normal cause though odd that they are more spherical than normal.

There must be all sorts of bizarre formations, creatures and things miles under the sea.

There ya go.............ALIENS!

Maybe Queeg was just clumsy?

"Damn, dropped them overboard. Boy, go get me two more big ball bearings!"

originally posted by: theabsolutetruth
a reply to: Vasa Croe

I read about those the other day, they are rather fascinating, probably some perfectly normal cause though odd that they are more spherical than normal.

There must be all sorts of bizarre formations, creatures and things miles under the sea.

Yeah....the spherical nature of these being different than the others normally found is what I am interested in as well.

I would wonder if it has something to do with depth at which these have been found, and if it is significantly deeper than where the others are typically found. Maybe something to do with pressure at that depth or temperature or something. Kind of like diamonds....the more pressure the better the diamond.

Alien seeds, eggs / pods.

Great now we really pissed them off!!!!

Nice find.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Dragon eggs......This is my guess and hope......Well maybe not.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

It is possible though chances are that sea bed was once dry land and they could have appeared then and erosion exposed them, that is if they are older than 10 million years. Or perhaps they were part of meteorites.

It is estimated that there are 500 billion tons of them on the seafloor. People have been trying to come up with a economically feasible way to mine them for years.
Wikipedia: Manganese Nodule

Deep Sea Mining

a reply to: butcherguy

They could be due to variations in volcanic activity though it doesn't explain their spherical appearance. Apparently they cover 70% of the seafloor, that is a lot of manganese.