Aisha.
I'm Aisha Rascoe.
This is the Sunday Story from Up first, where we go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story.
Today.
We're going really deep, and I mean really deep, basically to the bottom of the ocean.
There's been a lot of attention lately on a new mineral frontier in the dark depths of the sea.
More and more commercial mining interests have their eyes on the seabed floor as an untapped source of minerals essential to powering our green energy future.
So far, very few companies have been granted rights to mine the seafloor.
But recently, Willem Marks, a reporter in the UK was invited to witness one of the mining operations in action.
Here he is describing a moment standing on the stern of a huge mining vessel as it brought up a massive chunk of ocean floor.
This huge grabbing device, like a giant metal claw, comes out of the water.
It's traveled a mile up from the seabed.
It's filled with tons of rock and silt, and yet you can see the jaws haven't really closed.
And I suddenly realized as I see the water dripping out, there are little bits of rock falling out as well, and it's been falling out all the way up on our journey.
Villa Marx joins me now.
Welcome to the podcast.
Hey, Aisha.
So, Willem, given the sensitivities around sea mining, I have to wonder, like, how did you get this front row seat on an exploratory mining vessel?
Well, it's kind of a crazy story.
It started out last year.