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Minerals Report - International Seabed Authority

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CHAPTER 17<br />

EVALUATION OF THE NON-LIVING RESOURCES OF THE<br />

CONTINENTAL SHELF BEYOND THE 200-MILE LIMIT OF THE<br />

WORLD’S MARGINS*<br />

Summary<br />

Bramley J. Murton, Lindsay M. Parson, Peter J. Hunter & Peter R. Miles<br />

Challenger Division for Seafloor Processes, Southampton Oceanography Centre,<br />

European Way, Southampton, UK.<br />

This report examines the non-living resource potential within the<br />

extended “legal “ continental shelf (ELCS). These areas lie beyond the 200<br />

nautical mile jurisdiction of nation states’ exclusive economic zones, and<br />

their outer limits are defined by the criteria established by the United<br />

Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 76, 1982.<br />

The offshore non-living resource potentials described in this report<br />

are based on a statistical evaluation of known occurrences and reserves,<br />

the geologic environments favourable for their formation, models for<br />

sediment type and thickness, and basement composition. The result is an<br />

assessment of the potential for non-living resources to occur. These<br />

estimates are based on the current state of, largely, publicly available<br />

information. In many instances these data are incomplete. Hence these<br />

resource estimates are to be considered as a guide to the relative potential<br />

for occurrence only, and not a definitive statement of the resources or<br />

reserves present.<br />

Placer deposits comprising heavy minerals, gold and diamonds are<br />

limited to near-shore areas and have negligible resource potential in the<br />

ELCS regions. Similarly, phosphorites occur in the equatorial oceans,<br />

mainly between 400 m and 1,500 m depth, but have limited resource<br />

potential in ELCS areas. Evaporite deposits occur on many continental<br />

margins. However, they only overlap with ELCS regions off eastern North<br />

America and western central Africa, where their resource potential is low.<br />

Polymetalic sulphides (PMS) are formed at active plate boundaries.<br />

______________________<br />

* This paper has been published under separate cover as ISA Technical Study No:1, ISBN#<br />

976-610-375-5.<br />

INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY 667

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