What we can see right now on screen is that it’s got this very thick layer of ferromanganese crust, which coats all of the substrate.
And that crust contains many metals which are which are being sought after commercially,
things like cobalt, nickel, manganese, iron, and so on.
And although it’s not being exploited currently, it may be exploited in the future.
Unfortunately, many of these habitats have never been explored.
And so it’s important that we characterize the biology so we can kind of gauge how to manage and
potentially protect these environments in the future.