The Metals Company, San Diego, minerals, copper, nickel, manganese nodules, environment, ocean

San Diego, CaliforniaJune 8, 2021Gerard Barron, Chairman and CEO of The Metals Company, holds a nodule brought up from the sea floor, which he plans for his company to mine the seafloor for these nodules in the Clarion Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean. The Maersk Launcher research ship recently returned to San Diego after conducting core sample from deep in the ocean floor in the Clarion Clipperton Zone. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)