Sofia (Bulgaria) The current status of IOM exploration activities and the importance of future efforts aimed at establishing national legislation on deep-sea exploration and exploitation in IOM sponsoring states, as well as information on the organization’s commercialization process, were the focus of discussions between the Minister of Energy of the Republic of Bulgaria, Mr. Zhecho … Read more
Goa (India) IOM representatives V. Stoyanova and J. Mazurek participated in the 8th Annual Contractors’ Meeting, which was held in Goa, India, from 18 to 20 September 2025. The event was hosted by the ISA Secretariat and the Government of India through the Ministry of Earth Sciences and the National Institute of Oceanography. Sixteen of … Read more
A chapter titled Assessment of Cumulative Effects for Environmental Management of Deep-sea Areas Targeted for Resource Extraction (Radziejewska et al., 2025) has recently been published within the book edited by R. Sharma: Deep-Sea Mining Management, Policy and Regulation, published in Springer. The chapter discusses how the assessment of cumulative impacts/effects features in the ecosystem approach … Read more
An article titled Unlocking Europe’s resources: the strategic potential of IOM deep sea polymetallic nodules for critical metals supply (Baláž et al., 2025) has recently been published in the journal Economics and Environment. The paper investigates the potential of seabed polymetallic nodules in the IOM claim area in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean … Read more
Szczecin (Poland) The 84th meeting of the IOM Council was held from 9 to 13 June 2025 at the IOM headquarters in Szczecin, Poland. The topics discussed by the Plenipotentiary Representatives of the IOM member states included exploration activities of the organization, matters related to the third extension of the exploration contract with ISA, and … Read more
CCZ (Pacific Ocean) On 26 December 2024, the Interoceanmetal Joint Organization science team boarded the research vessel Anuanua Moana in San Diego, USA. The exploration was carried out in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, in an area covered by the contract for exploration for polymetallic nodules signed between the International Seabed Authority (ISA) and the IOM. The … Read more
Szczecin (Poland) The 83rd meeting of the IOM Council was held at IOM Headquarters in Szczecin, Poland, from 25 to 29 December 2024. The main topics discussed by the Plenipotentiary Representatives of IOM Member States were organizational issues related to the activities of the organization. One of the main goals of the meeting was to … Read more
Automated estimation of offshore polymetallic nodule abundance based on seafloor imagery using deep learning (Tomczak et al., 2024) was published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. This paper advocates for the automation of polymetallic nodules detection and abundance estimation using deep learning algorithms applied to seabed photographs. Convolutional neural network framework was proposed, … Read more
Busan (Republic of Korea) IOM representatives T. Abramowski and P. Baláž took part in the ISA annual contractors meeting held in Busan (Republic of Korea) on 30 September – 2 October 2024 under the theme “Fostering dialogue and collective actions for effective regulatory compliance of activities carried out in the Area.” The meeting was jointly … Read more
Szczecin (Poland) On 25 June 2024, Dr. P. Balaz, a geologist of the Interoceanmetal Joint Organization, gave a presentation at the Geocentrum of the University of Szczecin. The lecture entitled “Polymetallic nodules – metal resources on the Pacific seabed” was aimed at presenting polymetallic nodules as a source of critical metals for securing the needs … Read more