Molycorp.Inc. (fka MCPIQ)

[mick]

Dr. Craig Smith: When we go out and collect a sample on the seafloor, we collect hundreds of new species.

Bill Whitaker: Things that you've never seen before?

Dr. Craig Smith: Sure, oh yeah, yeah.

Craig Smith is an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii. He told us he was surprised at how much life could survive three miles deep. His expeditions to the CCZ have turned up fantastical creatures like this squidworm, or a fluorescent sea cucumber dubbed a "gummy squirrel." There are other deep sea originals too: a foot-long shrimp, a ping pong tree sponge, and a galloping sea urchin.

Bill Whitaker: Mining companies say that the CCZ is only about 1% of the ocean. That the ocean is so vast that-- it could absorb the activity in that--

Dr. Craig Smith: Right…

Bill Whitaker: small portion of--

Dr. Craig Smith: Yeah, that's--

Bill Whitaker: --the ocean.

Dr. Craig Smith: --a little bit like saying the Amazon Rainforest is only 8% of the-- the global land area so we can wipe it out and it doesn't matter.

Bill Whitaker: Won't deep sea mining actually be less invasive, have less of an impact than mining on land?

Dr. Craig Smith: I would say no. Mining is mining. I think it's similar to strip mining on land. And it'll take a really long time for things to recover.

Smith is working with the United Nation's Seabed Authority, which set aside nine protected areas that will be off limits to miners. And Kris Van Nijen has invited independent scientists to monitor GSR's work.

Bill Whitaker: If you find that the environmental impact is severe, would this stop the project?

Kris Van Nijen: Absolutely. I don't think-- we're not in-- into this project to come up with a means to produce metals worse than what is being done today. We're in it because we believe it can be done better.

So far 19 different countries have licenses in the Clarion Clipperton Zone, China has more than anyone else. Russia and Japan have also jumped in. So has France, Germany, Korea, even Cuba and Tonga have stakes. Who's missing? The United States.

It's not for lack of trying. The U.N.'s Law of the Sea covers deep sea mining, and in 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the treaty. But it was dead on arrival in the Senate, despite repeated attempts to ratify it, including this past July.

Bill Whitaker: Is that doing us harm?

Jonathan White: Absolutely. We don't have a seat at that table.

Jonathan White is a retired rear admiral who now runs a non-profit to protect oceans. He told us that being outside the treaty means the U.S. has no say in how this new gold rush is being run.

Jonathan White: It's a law. And if we're not gonna be part of that lawful system, doesn't it make us sort of outlaws of the sea?

With the U.S. on the sidelines, China has poured hundreds of millions into its deep sea ambitions. Last month, China unveiled its new weapons that included an underwater drone that will patrol the ocean.

Jonathan White: If you're in the military, a weapon system, the guidance of our weapons, X-ray machines, microwaves, they all rely on elements that are hard to come by.

Bill Whitaker: So, China controls most of these elements from terrestrial sources?

Jonathan White: Yes.

Bill Whitaker: And now they're going after the lion's share of the seabed sources?

Jonathan White: They certainly are.

Bill Whitaker: Does that concern you?

Jonathan White: It absolutely concerns me. It concerns me with relation to our national security going forward. We need to be in this game.

So we called the 22 senators opposed to the treaty, all Republicans, to ask why. None would appear on camera. Those who wrote us said that ceding any control to the United Nations was a deal-breaker.

But Rear Admiral white worries if the U.S. doesn't ratify the Law of the Sea, it will soon be too late.

Bill Whitaker: And if we don't? What does that mean for us?

Jonathan White: I think it means that, again, we become more isolated, especially in terms of a growing global economy.

Bill Whitaker: And we're dependent on China?

Jonathan White: And absolutely more dependent on China.

Bill Whitaker: So what sense does that make?

Jonathan White: It makes no sense.

The country that made it to the moon first may now miss the race to this new frontier -- and the untold riches of the deep.

Produced by Heather Abbott. Associate producer, Tadd J. Lascari.

© 2019 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.



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