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Minerals Report - International Seabed Authority

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non-living reserves. “Reserves” are, by definition, proven deposits of<br />

known abundance and volume. Feasibility projections for resource<br />

exploitation are based on surveys of current activities and those projected<br />

over several decades. These projections will almost certainly change with<br />

technological advances, variations in supply and demand, and evolving<br />

local and global economic conditions.<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 />

1.4 Data sources<br />

Data for this report have been compiled from the resources of the<br />

United Kingdom's National Oceanographic Library (NOL) including<br />

published literature and manuscripts at the facility, atlases, charts, CD-<br />

ROMs and core texts on marine resources, as well as the data bases of the<br />

British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) and Marine Information and<br />

Advisory Service (MIAS). Electronic sources such as the broad science and<br />

technology databases (e.g. the ISI Web of Science, PASCAL, GeoRef,<br />

Geobase, EEVL (Engineering Virtual Library), MOFR (Marine<br />

Oceanographic and Freshwater Resources), OCEANIS (Ocean Information<br />

System), Ocean Treaties data-set, and online data inventories) are used to<br />

further support the data bases. These sources are utilised alongside the inhouse<br />

and international databases of world bathymetry (GEBCO),<br />

sedimentology and geophysics (such as the National Geophysical Data<br />

Centre, NGDC) to enable a comprehensive and quantitative synthesis of<br />

the offshore, non-living resource potential. An Appendix containing website<br />

addresses of all sources researched for this assessment is included at<br />

the rear of this report.<br />

INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY 671

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