SONNE SO295

The cruise builds on the results of the European collaborative JPI Oceans project MiningImpact 2 and follows the cruise SO268 in February-May 2019, which collected the environmental baseline information in both working areas in the German and Belgian license areas of the CCZ (NE Pacific), as well as expedition IP21 conducted in March-May 2021, which collected independent scientific monitoring data of the first industrial nodule collector trial. Hence, SO295 will establish the important first data point in the time series assessing the environmental impacts induced by the mining of polymetallic nodules in the deep sea after 1.5 years. Since nodule mining creates two main disturbances, removal of the surface sediments and the nodule habitat where nodules are collected as well as blanketing of the surrounding unmined seafloor, both impact types will be investigated in the two areas. Within these, different sites representative for gradients and variability of the disturbances will be identified, particularly addressing the impact due to varying thickness of the sediment blanket. In addition, the restoration experiment, which was started during SO268, consisting of artificial hard substrates as substitutes of manganese nodules, will be sampled. Natural variability is addressed by continuing the sampling of reference sites established in both license areas