好英语网中美等大国竞相赴深海“淘金”
Tom Dettweiler makes his living miles down. He helped find the Titanic. After that, his teams located a lost submarine heavy with gold. In all, he has cast light on dozens of vanished ships.
汤姆·德特魏勒(Tom Dettweiler)靠地表几英里之下的生意过活。他曾经帮着找到了泰坦尼克号。之后，他的团队确认了一艘满载金子沉船的具体位置。全部加在一起，他已经让几十艘消失的船只重见天日了。
Mr. Dettweiler has now turned from recovering lost treasures to prospecting for natural ones that litter the seabed: craggy deposits rich in gold and silver, copper and cobalt, lead and zinc. A new understanding of marine geology has led to the discovery of hundreds of these unexpected ore bodies, known as massive sulfides because of their sulfurous nature.
如今，德特魏勒已经从找寻消失的珍宝转行去勘探散落在海底的自然资源：富含金银、铜钴、铅锌的崎岖矿床。对海洋地质学的全新理解使人们与数以百计的此类矿体不期而遇。由于以硫化物的形式存在，它们被称为“多金属硫化物”。
Nautilus矿业的地质学家检查一份钻取的矿物样品。该公司计划开采一处位于俾斯麦海底的富含金和铜的矿场。
These finds are fueling a gold rush as China and other nations, companies and entrepreneurs race to stake claims to the sulfide-rich areas, which dot the volcanic springs of the frigid seabed. The prospectors — motivated by dwindling resources on land as well as record prices for gold and other metals — are busy hauling up samples and assessing deposits valued at trillions of dollars.
这些发现掀起了一股淘金热，公司、企业家和包括中国在内的一些国家竞相宣示对富硫区域的权利。这些区域散布在冰冷海底的火山温泉之间。日益减少的陆地资源，以及黄金等金属创下的历史高价，促使勘探者们忙于对价值数万亿美元的海底矿床进行采样和评估。
“We’ve had extreme success,” Mr. Dettweiler said in a recent interview about the deepwater efforts of his company, Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, Fla.
德特魏勒为位于佛罗里达州坦帕的奥德赛海洋探索公司(Odyssey Marine Exploration)工作。最近，在一次关于公司深海运作的采访中，他说，“我们已经取得了极大的成功。”
Skeptics once likened mining the deep to looking for riches on the moon. No more. Progress in marine geology, predictions of metal shortages in the decades ahead and improving access to the abyss are combining to make it real.
怀疑者曾经将深海采矿与月球寻宝相提并论。现在没人这么说了。海洋地质学的进步、未来几十年金属资源匮乏的预测，以及对海洋越来越深的探索，这些因素加在一起，深海采矿就变得现实可行。
Environmentalists have expressed growing alarm, saying too little research has been done on the risks of seabed mining. The industry has responded with studies, reassurance and upbeat conferences.
环境保护主义者越来越多地发出警告，他们说，关于海底采矿风险的研究还很少。采矿业对此的回应则是相关的研究、保证和基调乐观的会议。
The technological advances center on new robots, sensors and other equipment, some of it derived from the offshore oil and gas industry. Ships lower exploratory gear on long tethers and send down sharp drills that gnaw into the rocky seabed. All of this underwater machinery is making it more and more feasible to find, map and recover seabed riches.
海底采矿的技术进步围绕着新型机器人和传感器等设备展开，其中一些设备源于石油和天然气的海上开采行业。船只用长长的缆索将探测设备吊入海中，让尖利的钻头扎进坚硬的海床。所有这些水下机械设备使得海底矿藏更加易于发现、绘制图谱和开采。
Industrial powers — including government-supported groups in China, Japan and South Korea — are hunting for sulfides in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. And private companies like Odyssey have made hundreds of deep assessments and claims in the volcanic zones around Pacific island nations: Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.
行业巨头正在大西洋、印度洋和太平洋里寻找多金属硫化物，这些巨头当中也包括中日韩三国一些拥有政府支持的机构。而奥德赛这样的私营企业已经进行了数百次深海评估，并对一些太平洋岛国周边的火山地带宣示了权利，这些国家包括：斐济、汤加、瓦努阿图、新西兰、所罗门群岛和巴布亚新几内亚。
The International Seabed Authority, a sleepy United Nations body located in Jamaica that presides over mineral rights on the high seas, an area its officials like to characterize as 51 percent of the earth’s surface, has found itself besieged with sulfide queries.
国际海底管理局(International Seabed Authority) 是联合国的一个分支机构。这个向来无所事事的机构位于牙买加，掌管公海里矿产资源的权益问题。管理局的官员喜欢描述说，他们掌管了地球表面51%的区域。管理局最近发现，各种有关硫化物的咨询让他们应接不暇。
“There’s a lot at stake,” Mr. Dettweiler said. If metal prices go up, he added, “a billion-dollar deposit can turn into a hundred billion.”
德特魏勒说，“其中的关系十分重大”。他还补充说，如果金属价格继续升高，“一个价值十亿美元的矿床可能会带来千亿美元的财富。”
Scientists once thought the main source of wealth in the deep sea lay in beds of potato-size rocks that could be mined for such common metals as iron and nickel. In the 1960s and ’70s, entrepreneurs tried to scoop them up, but the rewards never offset the high cost of exploration, retrieval and transportation.
科学家曾经认为，深海之中的财富主要埋藏在由土豆大小的岩石铺成的岩床中，因为它们能用来开采铁和镍之类的普通金属。二十世纪六七十年代，企业家试图将这些资源挖掘出来，但是勘探、采掘和运输的高昂成本使这种行为得不偿失。
Today, increasingly, mines on land lack rich supplies of copper, a staple of modern life found in everything from pipes to computers. Many commercial ores have concentrations of only a half a percent. But seabed explorers have found purities of 10 percent and higher — turning the obscure deposits into potential bonanzas. The same turned out to be true of silver and gold.
如今，陆上矿场之中的富铜矿越来越少，而铜已是现代生活中的必需品，从管道到电脑，随处可见它的身影。市面上的许多矿石铜含量仅有0.5%。但是，海底勘探者已经发现了纯度为10%甚至更高的矿石，让这些隐蔽的矿床变成了潜在的富矿脉。事实证明，同样的前景也适用于银和金。
Fifteen years ago, would-be underwater miners staked the world’s first claim: Nautilus Minerals won title to about 2,000 square miles of the Papua New Guinea seabed rich in volcanic features.
十五年前，未来的水下采矿企业取得了世界上第一份海底矿藏开发权：Nautilus矿业(Nautilus Minerals)赢得了巴布亚新几内亚海底约2000平方英里富含火山物质区域的勘探开采权。
Last year, the company, based in Toronto, won a 20-year lease to mine a rich deposit in the Bismarck Sea, in the southwestern Pacific. The mounds are a mile down. The company says the site holds about 10 tons of gold and 125,000 tons of copper.
去年，这家总部位于多伦多的企业赢得了一个富矿床的20年开采租约。矿床位于太平洋西南部的俾斯麦海，在海平面之下一英里的地方。该公司说，此处蕴藏着大约十吨金和12.5万吨铜。
Nautilus plans to start mining next year but also cites possible delays. It is building robots up to 25 feet tall that are to collect sulfides and pump them to the surface. Barges are then to carry the seabed minerals to Rabaul, a Papua New Guinea port some 30 miles away.
Nautilus计划明年开始采矿，不过也提到了推迟的可能性。公司正在制造高达25英尺的机器人，准备靠它们来采集海底的金属硫化物，并将采集所得泵回海面。这之后，驳船会将这些海底矿物运到约30英里外的巴布亚新几内亚港口拉包尔。
“We’re making good progress,” Stephen Rogers, the company’s chief executive, recently told analysts.
最近，公司首席执行官斯蒂芬·罗杰斯(Stephen Rogers)对分析师们说，“我们进展顺利。”
Critics say the plan is potentially dangerous for fisheries, islanders and ecosystems. In a 32-page report, “Out of Our Depth,” an international group of environmentalists that calls itself the Deep Sea Mining Campaign noted that the volcanic sites shelter hundreds of species previously unknown to science.
批评人士说，该公司的计划对渔业、岛民和生态系统都有潜在危害。环境保护主义者组成的国际组织“反深海采矿运动”(Deep Sea Mining Campaign)发表了一份32页的报告《深不可测》(Out of Our Depth) ，指出这些海底火山区居住着数以百计的未知物种。
The group said information gaps should be filled and mitigation plans developed “before mining begins.”
该组织说，应当“在开采之前”填补信息空白，并且做出消除负面影响的计划。
In an interview, Mr. Rogers called the group’s analysis unfair. “We’re developing detailed environmental plans and have an obligation to do that,” he said. “We’re very proud of what we’ve done.”
在一次访谈中，罗杰斯说该组织的分析有欠公正。他说，“我们正在做详细的环境规划，这也是我们的义务。我们对已经做出的成绩非常自豪。”
Experts around the globe are watching Nautilus closely to see how it navigates the perils of environmental politics, novel technologies and unpredictable markets.
全球的专家都在密切注视Nautilus，看这家公司如何在环境政治、创新技术和难测市场带来的风险当中寻求发展。
“Any success will work as a trigger for other mining companies,” said Georgy Cherkashov, a Russian marine geologist and president of the International Marine Minerals Society.
俄罗斯海洋地质学家、国际海洋矿物学会(International Marine Minerals Society)主席格奥尔基·切尔卡舍夫(Georgy Cherkashov)说，“任何的成功都会引发其他矿业公司的连锁行动。”
China, the world’s largest consumer of gold, copper and many other industrial metals, has shown little interest in waiting for declarations of success. When the seabed authority adopted rules for sulfide prospecting in May 2010, Beijing’s representative filed the country’s application on the same day.
作为世界上最大的金、铜和许多其他工业金属的消费国，中国没有耐心等到有人宣布海底采矿成功的那一天。当海底管理局于2010年5月实施多金属硫化物勘探条例时，来自北京的代表当天就提交了中国的申请。
China does its mineral hunting from ships. It is also developing a submersible known as Jiaolong, after a mythical sea dragon, that can carry three people down deep enough to investigate the sulfide areas.
中国用水面船只进行矿物勘探工作，还建造了一台深海潜水器，以神秘的海洋生物命名为“蛟龙号”。“蛟龙号”能载三人潜入深海勘察多金属硫化物区域。
Last year, it signed a contract with the authority for exclusive sulfide rights to 3,860 square miles, about the size of Puerto Rico, on a volcanic rift nearly two miles below the Indian Ocean. Jin Jiancai, secretary general of China’s ocean mineral resources agency, told reporters that such deposits “will help China meet the increasing demand” for refined metals.
去年，中国与海底管理局签署条约，取得了3860平方英里区域多金属硫化物的独家开采权。该区域位于印度洋面近两英里之下的一个火山口，大小相当于波多黎各。中国大洋矿产资源研究开发协会（简称大洋协会）主任金建才 告诉记者，这种矿藏“将有助于满足中国对精炼金属日益增长的需求”。
Meanwhile, Tong Ling, China’s largest importer of copper concentrates and one of the world’s largest copper smelters, recently signed a deal with Nautilus for more than a million tons of Pacific sulfide ores per year — an amount equal to about 5 percent of the world’s copper production.
与此同时，铜陵有色最近与Nautilus达成协议，每年将从后者那里进口一百多万吨太平洋海底硫化物，数量大致相当于世界铜产量的5%。铜陵有色是中国最大的铜精矿进口商，也是世界最大的铜冶炼商之一。
Russia joined the high-seas rush in 2011, and France and South Korea in May.
俄罗斯于2011年加入了公海矿藏淘金者的行列，法国和韩国的加入时间则是今年五月。
Dr. Cherkashov of the minerals society played down the environmental concerns, saying one reason for the global rush is that seabed mining has a relatively low impact compared with land operations.
矿物学会的切尔卡舍夫博士对人们的环境担忧不以为然。他说，国际上热捧海底采矿的一个原因就是，与陆上开采相比，它的环境影响相对较小。
“It’s first come, first get,” he said of the multiplying claims. The wide maneuvering for the most promising sites, he added, represents “the last redivision of the world.”
谈到多重宣示权利的现象时，他说“原则是先到先得。”他又补充说，对最具开采潜力地区的广泛争夺，代表了“对世界的最后一次重新瓜分。”