The International Body for Benthic Studies, an intergovernmental organization under the UNO, approved the prospecting plan for deepwater poly-metallic sulphides for Russia so as to search and extract this mineral wealth in July 2011. According to national specialists, our country can become a leader in the exploration of these mineral resources of the Atlantic Ocean. Deepwater polymetallic sulphides are copper, nickel and zinc ores localized mainly at 1-5 km depths in the water areas of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. According to prognoses, ores in the area allocated for our country contain 2.5-10 percent of copper on average, including admixtures of gold. That is why geological surveying in the international area of the ocean bottom should stimulate in perspective a balanced development of the national mineral resources base. The Russian area of the bottom is being explored by the Polar Marine Geological and Prospecting Expedition (St. Petersburg and Lomonosov). Since 1993, within the borders of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, this organization in association with the All-Russia Research and Development Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources of the World Ocean (St. Petersburg) has discovered three large hydrothermal sulphide fields named in honor of outstanding geologists--Alexander Ashadze, Yuri Semenyov (Polar Marine Geological and Prospecting Expedition) and Alexander Logachyov from the Leningrad Mining Institute (today St. Petersburg State Mining University), as well as three hydrothermal ore fields-Krasnov (in honor of Sergei Krasnov, famous researcher of deepwater polymetallic sulphides from the All-Russia Research and Development Institute of Geology and Mineral resources of the World Ocean), Zenit-Viktoriya and Peter-burgskoye. All works--a series of geological and geophysical operations--are carried out on board the Professor Logachyov ship. In particular, multibeam echosounding makes it possible to estimate general geomorphological st ... Читать далее