The International Seabed Authority, a United Nations agency, is currently formulating guidelines on how to conduct ocean-floor mining, which should be completed by 2020. Two of the vents where the snail is found, could be mined in the near future for precious minerals, according to the Nature journal.Īccording to the Nature report, researchers settled on including the snail in the new Red List based on the criteria that it was found at just three spots on the ocean floor and the looming threat of deep-sea mining.Įxperts who were quoted in the report, say that the snails could be obliterated by ‘even a single attempt at deep-sea mining due to damage caused to the vents or the clouds of sediment that would result from mining activity’.įor the moment, there is a freeze on all global ocean-floor mining activities. But now, with technological advances, it has become much easier. In the past, extracting such minerals was cumbersome and expensive. When this happens, the hot water mixes with the cold seawater, in turn depositing minerals such as copper and manganese on the ocean floor. It was added by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to its updated Red List of Endangered Species on July 18, 2019.Ī hydrothermal vent is ‘a fissure on the seafloor from which geothermally heated water issues’. The scaly-foot snail ( Chrysomallon squamiferum) is found at three hydrothermal vents in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar. A rare snail found at only three spots in the Indian Ocean has become the first species to be officially declared threatened due to deep-sea mining.
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