top of page

Exploration  >  Biodiversity  >  Baseline  >  Ecosystem Functioning

THE PROJECT

The Eco-Safe Ridge Mining project is a 4-year, NOK 16 million collaborative and knowledge building project funded by The Research Council of Norway. The project aims to fill key knowledge gaps about deep-sea ecosystems on the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge. A better understanding is crucial and timely to inform policy and management decisions, especially with regard to identifying environmental hazards, risks and appropriate mitigation actions concerning deep-sea mining activities on the Norwegian shelf.  The deep sea is still poorly studied and may hold potential for many discoveries, including new species and compounds. Limited scientific knowledge of the marine ecosystems where mineral resources occur precludes an objective assessment of the risks involved with mining and effective protection of important ecosystems from harmful effects of mining-related activities. ​

DeepInsight_pycnogonid_ROV942_DSC01043-portrait.JPG
TCM6-Perle&Bruse_1.png

PROJECT NEWS

Open Data Published
March 2026

Thibaut Barreyre et al. published a time-series of ocean bottom currents from a seafloor current meter at the Jan Mayen hydrothermal vent field, Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge (AMOR) in SEANOE. The
series is linked on our Dissmenination page.
​

​

Podcast Interview
4 November 2025

Pedro Ribeiro was interviewed on the Studio Energie podcast in November 2025 to discuss the state of current knowledge on the environmental impact of deep-sea mining.

Policy and Practice
Reviews article

August 2025

In a paper published in 2025, Sanni et al. applied a framework for environmental risk assessment as a mechanism to identify priority environmental knowledge, technology, and practice needed for future SMS
mining operations.

COLLABORATORS

Dedication. Expertise. Insight. 

Eco-Safe Ridge Mining is a collaborative and knowledge building project between academia and industry. 

Boyd_Rock_sponges_ROV637-DSC00039.JPG

FUNDING & PARTNERS

This project is funded by the Research Council of Norway. The Centre for Deep Sea Research and the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Bergen, Norway, are the project hosts. The project has a wide variety of partners and collaborators.

logo-UiB (1).png
logo-NORCE (1).jpg
logo-UiS-300x165.jpg
logo-NIOZ-300x84.png
logo-Offshore_Norge-300x105.png
logo-Adepth (1).png
logo-equinor (1).jpg
logo-Loke_logo2 (1).jpeg
logo-aanderaa-300x85.png
logo-GCE-300x108.jpg

Funded by the Research Council of Norway - KSPSAMARBEID21 project. no. 326881
All images of the deep sea are credited: UiB/NORMAR

© 2025 by ECO-SAFE RIDGE MINING. 

Centre for Deep Sea Research | University of Bergen

  • Instagram
  • Linkedin
bottom of page