Thoughts on Appraising Marine Mineral Resources

Abstract

This paper shows that basic principles developed for estimating mineral endowment and potential mineral supply of a land region apply also to such estimation for a marine region. However, estimation methods for marine minerals may differ from those for land minerals as a consequence of differences in modes of occurrence and in available information. Because many mineral endowment measures, e.g., thickness of ferromanganese crust and concentration of cobalt, are correlated, as also are bathymetric and geologic measurements, the multivariate statistical methods of factor, regression, and correspondence analyses may be especially useful in the estimation of the metal endowment of a marine region. This paper examines the use of these methods, with cobalt in ferromanganese crusts serving as a reference. Although the paper deals primarily with the use of multivariate statistical relations to estimate cobalt endowment, some consideration also is given to the use of these relations within a potential supply system that is designed to estimate the amount of metal that is discoverable and producible for specific economic circumstances.