The trial on April 17 was India's "first step towards deep-sea mining", Shailesh Nayak, secretary, ministry of earth sciences said.
In a significant step towards deep-sea mining, India has successfully completed trial run of a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) that dived more than five km depth to map sea-bed for resources in the Indian Ocean.
"The ROV has completed its trial run at a record depth of over 5200 metres. It is a major achievement that we are able to operate an unmanned vehicle at such depth where the pressure would be unimaginable," minister of state for earth sciences Prithviraj Chavan told reporters here today.
The trial on April 17 was India's "first step towards deep-sea mining", Shailesh Nayak, secretary, ministry of earth sciences said.
Chavan, accompanied by top officials including Nayak, was on his first visit to Chennai campus of National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), which is involved in the project.
With thinning terrestrial resources, and the focus shifting on the sea for energy and other needs, "the experience gained allows us to improve and replicate the system," he said.
"Of course, the whole purpose of activities in ocean science is to look at the possibilities of both living and non-living resources that ocean has to give," Chavan said.
India became the first country to reach a depth of 5829 metres in central Indian Ocean, M A Atmanand, Director, NIOT, said.
An Indian flag was dropped at the point, around 2500 km from southernmost tip Kanyakumari, to mark the occasion, he added.
Nayak said the data retrieved by the ROV, including images and some microbes, was being analysed. "The basic idea was to map the area to know what was there and what it takes to work and mine."
Chavan said he looked forward to the presence of metals like manganese, cobalt and nickel and also gas hydrates.
"India has mining rights to 75,000 sq km of sea, and as terrestrial metal resources exhaust, this (deep sea-mining) will start making sense and we have to make the beginning somewhere," he said.
Chavan said research efforts focused on drugs from deep-sea and explained that some animals and plants had features of sustainability in adverse conditions which could be studied.
NIOT's next challenge was to reach the 6000 metre mark, Atmanand said.
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