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Seabed minerals, measured before anything is mined.

Marine sand, gravel and diamonds are already dredged in coastal waters, and nodules, crusts and sulphides are explored in the deep ocean under international rules. In every case the first obligation is to know the environment: currents, turbidity, sediment and life, before, during and after any disturbance. Buoys, moorings and seabed instruments report over satellite to an open, verifiable record.

Industry

Mining

Measurements

6

Sources cited

4

1. Mining · Seabed and marine minerals

   Knowing the ocean first

   Marine minerals are dredged on continental shelves under national rules, and explored in the deep ocean under the Law of the Sea. Either way, decisions rest on knowing the environment before it is disturbed. Long, careful baselines of currents, sediment and life are the first and most important product of any marine minerals programme.

2. What is measured

   Currents, sediment, oxygen and sound

   Current profilers, turbidity and sediment sensors, temperature, salinity and oxygen sensors and hydrophones sit on moorings through the water column. Seabed landers carry cameras and sediment traps, and a surface buoy measures wind, waves and sea state. A reference station outside the area of influence anchors every comparison.

   Instruments

   Current profilers · Turbidity · CTD and oxygen · Hydrophones · Landers · Met-ocean buoy

3. The base node

   A node on the surface buoy

   The surface buoy carries a node that reads its own sensors and the acoustic summaries from instruments below. It stamps and signs every value, reduces raw data to summaries the satellite link can carry, keeps the full record on board and flags plume conditions for the operations team.

4. Radio and links

   Acoustic below, satellite above

   Radio does not travel through seawater, so seabed and subsurface instruments speak to the buoy by acoustic modem. The buoy reaches shore over satellite IoT, LEO broadband or a 3GPP non-terrestrial link, and over public cellular when it is close to the coast.

   Links

   Acoustic modem · Satellite · 3GPP NTN · Public cellular

5. How it works

   From the seabed to the shore record

   A lander’s turbidity summary rises to the buoy acoustically, joins the buoy’s own readings in its node, is signed and sent over satellite to the shore. There it is compared with the reference station, flagged for quality and published to the operations team, while the full record waits on the instrument for recovery.

6. From order to operation · Order

   Scope the area and its obligations

   The scope starts from the licence or the exploration contract, its environmental obligations and the scientific questions of the baseline. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns a mooring and lander plan, the telemetry design, the data management plan and a price per deployment period, with the reference areas outside the zone of influence.

   Plan a deployment

7. From order to operation · Survey

   Survey the site and the sea

   Bathymetry, currents and sea state are reviewed with the client’s scientists, mooring positions are chosen inside and outside the area of influence, and the shore base, vessel and satellite services are confirmed. Every planned position is recorded with its depth and its purpose in the baseline.

8. From order to operation · Permits

   Licences at sea

   Moorings need the approval of the coastal state or the contractor’s regulator, navigation notices and, inside a licence area, consistency with the work plan. Data sharing follows the rules of the regime, which may require baseline data to be made available to the regulator.

9. From order to operation · Build

   Build and test for the ocean

   Buoys, moorings and landers are assembled, their sensors calibrated and their nodes, acoustic modems and satellite terminals tested together in a tank or harbour trial. Each instrument is enrolled with its identity, so every record carries it from deployment to recovery.

   Open the Station Builder

10. From order to operation · Install

    Deploy from a vessel

    Deployment follows a weather window: the reference station first, then moorings and landers in the planned order, and finally the surface buoy that relays them. Each position is fixed by satellite navigation at release and confirmed acoustically on the seabed.

11. From order to operation · Commission

    Commission at sea

    Each node proves its identity, then readings are compared with the vessel’s calibrated profiler casts taken beside each mooring. Plume thresholds agreed with the scientists are set, and a test message runs from a lander, through the buoy and the satellite, to the shore record.

12. From order to operation · Operate

    Watch the baseline, then the disturbance

    The console shows currents, turbidity, oxygen and sound at every mooring against the reference station. During any test disturbance, plumes are followed as they move, with alerts to the operations team, and the full record supports the environmental impact assessment that follows.

13. From order to operation · Maintain

    Recover, service, redeploy

    Moorings and landers are recovered on schedule, their full records downloaded and checked, sensors cleaned and recalibrated and batteries replaced before redeployment. The record links every deployment period, so a multi-year baseline reads as one series. Each recovery also checks moorings, releases and floats against the deployment plan.

    Book field services

14. Data products

    A baseline others can use

    Contractors and regulators receive baseline series and monitoring reports; operations teams receive plume alerts and met-ocean conditions; biologists receive imagery and fauna records; and, under the data plan, scientists and the public receive open releases with their metadata, so the baseline serves more than one decision.

    See the data products

15. Evidence

    Evidence under international rules

    Calibrations, deployment and recovery records, every message and every data release are signed and kept. Monitoring follows the Law of the Sea, the seabed regulator’s recommendations for environmental baselines and the essential ocean variables of the global observing system, so independent scientists can verify each series.

    Drawn against

    UNCLOS Part XI · International Seabed Authority · GOOS essential ocean variables

16. What you get

    Ocean and coastal observing

    Moored buoys, profiling floats, tide and wave gauges, coastal radar and AIS reception with quality-controlled feeds. Delivered as managed service and data licence, for ports, coastal agencies, offshore energy, fisheries. Scale: Coastline to basin. Service levels are written as numbers you can measure on your own dashboard.

    Talk to sales

17. Next step

    Plan seabed and marine minerals with us

    Tell us the site, the measurements and the rules it answers to. We reply with a survey proposal, a design and a scope for seabed and marine minerals. An engineer replies with a survey proposal and a scope, and the plan grows from one site to the network you need, at your pace.

    Plan a deploymentOpen the Station BuilderOpen the Studio

01The place and its hazards

Where it runs, and what can go wrong.

Operating contextNearshore operations dredge aggregates, tin or diamonds from the continental shelf under national licences and environmental assessment. Beyond national jurisdiction, the International Seabed Authority regulates exploration for polymetallic nodules, sulphides and cobalt-rich crusts under the Law of the Sea, and contractors must establish environmental baselines. Sediment plumes and disturbance of seabed life are the central questions in both settings.

Hazards

• Sediment plumes at the seabed and from discharge in the water column
• Loss of seabed habitat and slow-recovering fauna
• Underwater noise and light affecting marine life
• Weather and sea state limiting operations and recovery of equipment
• Vessel and mooring safety

02What must be measured

What, where, how often, and under which rules.

Each measurement names where it is taken, how often, and the public standard or regulation behind it. Numbers in the sources column open the cited source below.

03The observation stack

From one base unit to a network.

The same blocks at every scale: instruments and a base node, a site with its radio, a fleet run as one, and a network federated on the open protocol.

1. 01

   Base unit

   A surface buoy with a node that reads its own met-ocean sensors and summaries from instruments below, signs them and sends them over a satellite link.

   Build a station →
2. 02

   Site

   A study or licence area: a surface buoy, subsurface moorings, seabed landers and a reference station outside the area of influence.

   Plan a site →
3. 03

   Fleet

   Every mooring and lander of a programme, deployed and recovered on a plan, managed as one fleet with one data record.

   Managed offers →
4. 04

   Network

   Contractors, national agencies, the regulator and scientists exchange data through open ocean standards, each with the access the rules give them.

   The open protocol →

• 01Moored buoy
• 02Water quality sonde
• 03Compact weather station
• 04Acoustic sensor
• 05Micro node (Nano)
• 063GPP NTN terminal
• 07Solar array
• 08Battery case

Radio and links

Satellite

Offshore there is no terrestrial network; satellite IoT, LEO broadband and 3GPP non-terrestrial links carry buoy data to shore.

Radio and links

Acoustic modem

Seabed instruments send summaries to the surface buoy by acoustic modem, because radio does not travel through seawater.

Radio and links

Public cellular

Within reach of the coast, cellular coverage carries nearshore buoy data at the lowest cost.

Edge computeThe buoy’s node reduces raw records to summaries for the satellite link, keeps the full records on board for recovery and flags plume conditions in near real time.

PowerBuoys run on solar and batteries; moorings and landers run on batteries sized for the deployment period, between recoveries.

04How it works

From the instrument to the product.

One observation’s path, tier by tier, with the interface on every link and a bill of materials below; then how the one node grows to a site, a fleet and federated networks.

05From order to operation

Every step, from the first call to a running site.

The same crew and the same record carry the work from scope to maintenance.

1. 01 Order

   Scope the area and its obligations

   The scope starts from the licence or the exploration contract, its environmental obligations and the scientific questions of the baseline. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns a mooring and lander plan, the telemetry design, the data management plan and a price per deployment period, with the reference areas outside the zone of influence.

2. 02 Survey

   Survey the site and the sea

   Bathymetry, currents and sea state are reviewed with the client’s scientists, mooring positions are chosen inside and outside the area of influence, and the shore base, vessel and satellite services are confirmed. Every planned position is recorded with its depth and its purpose in the baseline.

3. 03 Permits

   Licences at sea

   Moorings need the approval of the coastal state or the contractor’s regulator, navigation notices and, inside a licence area, consistency with the work plan. Data sharing follows the rules of the regime, which may require baseline data to be made available to the regulator. 31

4. 04 Build

   Build and test for the ocean

   Buoys, moorings and landers are assembled, their sensors calibrated and their nodes, acoustic modems and satellite terminals tested together in a tank or harbour trial. Each instrument is enrolled with its identity, so every record carries it from deployment to recovery.

5. 05 Install

   Deploy from a vessel

   Deployment follows a weather window: the reference station first, then moorings and landers in the planned order, and finally the surface buoy that relays them. Each position is fixed by satellite navigation at release and confirmed acoustically on the seabed.

6. 06 Commission

   Commission at sea

   Each node proves its identity, then readings are compared with the vessel’s calibrated profiler casts taken beside each mooring. Plume thresholds agreed with the scientists are set, and a test message runs from a lander, through the buoy and the satellite, to the shore record.

7. 07 Operate

   Watch the baseline, then the disturbance

   The console shows currents, turbidity, oxygen and sound at every mooring against the reference station. During any test disturbance, plumes are followed as they move, with alerts to the operations team, and the full record supports the environmental impact assessment that follows.

8. 08 Maintain

   Recover, service, redeploy

   Moorings and landers are recovered on schedule, their full records downloaded and checked, sensors cleaned and recalibrated and batteries replaced before redeployment. The record links every deployment period, so a multi-year baseline reads as one series. Each recovery also checks moorings, releases and floats against the deployment plan.

06Data products and integration

What it delivers, to whom, and into which systems.

Data products

• Environmental baseline seriesContractors, regulators and scientists
• Plume tracking and alertsOperations teams and environmental managers
• Met-ocean conditions for operationsVessel masters and marine coordinators
• Seabed imagery and fauna recordsBiologists and environmental assessors
• Open data releasesThe scientific community and the public

Integration

• Ocean data systemsData is described and exchanged with ocean community standards, so national data centres and regulators can ingest it.
• Vessel and operations planningMet-ocean and plume data reach the vessel’s planning tools and the operations team.
• Impact assessmentBaseline and monitoring series are delivered to the assessment team with their quality flags and calibrations.

Exchanged through OGC SensorThings API, Climate and Forecast (CF) conventions, 3GPP NTN.

07Questions buyers ask

Before you scope it.

Do you take a position on deep-sea mining?

We measure. Baselines and monitoring are needed whatever is decided, and the data belongs to the client under the rules of the regime that governs the area.

Can baseline data be shared with scientists?

Yes. The data management plan can release data openly, and the records carry their metadata and quality flags so others can use them.

How is data recovered when the satellite link is limited?

Summaries travel by satellite; full records are kept on the instruments and downloaded at each recovery, then joined to the same record.

Does this work for nearshore dredging too?

Yes. Nearshore programmes use the same buoys and moorings, often with cellular links and shorter deployment periods.

08Resources

The sources behind this page.

Public standards, regulations and guidance, cited where they apply. Each applies only where its jurisdiction or scope does.

1. 1International Seabed Authority: regulations and recommendations for exploration in the AreaInternational Seabed Authority
2. 2Global Ocean Observing System: essential ocean variablesGOOS (IOC-UNESCO)
3. 3United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Part XIUnited Nations · 1982
4. 4Guide to Instruments and Methods of Observation (WMO-No. 8)World Meteorological Organization

09Related

Use cases and solutions.

10Mining: specialized fields

Other fields of this industry.

Bring us the site.

Plan a deployment, configure a station, model it in the Studio or talk to sales. The form names who receives your details.