The deep pacific: Island governance and seabed mineral development

While relatively little is known about the deep sea compared to land, data are being collected that fundamentally change how ocean spaces are thought about and engaged with. Beneath the surface of our planet’s expansive oceans lies the prospect of a new gold rush (after Shukman, 2013), one in which, in pursuit of sunken geologic treasures, companies scour the seabed for minerals and rare metals. The desire to locate such deposits is spurring a surge in attempts to map sections of seabed in high resolution, and to probe the ocean floor to determine the extent and composition of its raw materials. These technical assessments are steps in a process to assert national marine territorial boundaries, key to transforming the seabed into a space for industrialscale resource extraction.