ABSTRACT

The Office of Strategic International Minerals of the Minerals Management Service, Department of the Interior, has been established to develop a leasing prgram for non energy minerals in the Outer Continental Shelf/Exclusive Economic zone (OCS/EEZ)of the United States. The Minerals Management Service is working closely with several states through joint Federal/State Task Forces to conduct a case-by-case leasing program that is environment ally sound and safe. This paper provides an overview of the program, reviews the current status of leasing proposals, and describes future program initiative snow under consideration.

INTRODUCTION

On March 10, 1983, President Reagan proclaimed that the ocean area extending a distance 200 nautical miles frisk the baseline from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured was the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)of the Nation. This proclamation covered about 3 billion acres of territory, an area almost one-third larger in size than the 2.3 billion acres of onshore land under American jurisdiction. Through this proclamation, the President confirmed the United States? sovereign right and control over the living and the nonliving (mineral deposits) natural resources of the seabed, sub soil, and Super jacent waters. The OCS/EEZ is known to Contain major deposits of oil and gas and deposits of non energy minerals, including strategic and critical minerals. In this paper the discussion will focus on non energy minerals and the current status of -apartments of the Interior (D31)mineral leasing activities in the OCS/EEZ.

OFFSHOREMINERAL RESOURCES

Mineral investigations to date have identified six basic types of potentially economic mineral resources found off our coast. These include:

  1. construction materials such as sand and gravel for building and beach replenishment;

  2. placer deposits of tin, titanium, gold, and platinum;

  3. phosphoresces, a potential source of agricultural fertilizer;

  4. manganese oxide nodules;

  5. cobalt-rich manganese crusts;

  6. and poly metallic sulfides rich in zinc, iron, and copper with lesser quantities of silver; lead, cadmium, gold, craniums, platinum, and other metals.

The general location of offshore mineral resources with respect to the conterminous United states and Alaska is shown in Figures 1 and 2. In addition to the extensive distribution of sand and gravel, the deposits include; phosphoresces off southern California and the southeast Atlantic margin; cobalt crusts on sea mounts off Central California; manganese no delusion the Blake Plateau off the Carolina coast; massive Sulfide deposits off the central and western pacific coasts; and placers that contain titanium, platinum, rare earths, and gold off the Northwest and Alaskan coastlines.

Although marine mining operation shave been conducted in United States? coastal waters for many years, activity has been mostly limited to small-scale extraction of alluvial deposits located at water depths between 20 and 40 meters (National Advisory Committee on Weans and Atmosphere,1983). The primary impediment to Increased marine minerals production has been the greater economic attractiveness of land based deposits as compared to marine deposits. However, a combination of factors such as depletion of existing mineral supply sources, the projected increase in desmans for minerals, strategic considerations, and environmental restriction on the development of land based deposits has stimulated interesting marine deposits. The discovery of poly metallic sulfides as seafloor spreading centers and significant deposits of cobalt-rich manganese crusts in the Hawaiian archipelago has also contributed to renewed interesting marine

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