Impossible Metals announced on November 9 that Eureka recovered about 450 grams of nodules below 4,000 metres in the Pacific. Reuters dates the expedition to September.

The big change

  • What changed: A deep-ocean test.
  • Why it matters: Collection can be selective.
  • What to watch: Impact and scale.

A small research sample

The company says its robot hovers, uses AI to avoid nodules bearing visible life, picks with robotic arms and lifts its load through buoyancy rather than a riser pipe. Partner Viridian Biometals will study bacteria in the sample. This is a research recovery, not demonstrated commercial output or ecological safety.

It plans to publish dive data and test a larger Eureka III in a 2027 environmental study initiated by Germany's Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources. That assessment remains prospective.

Polymetallic nodules contain metals including nickel and cobalt, according to the International Seabed Authority.

What environmental evidence can say

In a separate 2025 study, researchers revisited tracks from a different 1979 nodule-collector test and found some biological impacts persisted 44 years later, although some groups had begun to recolonise. Directly disturbed communities remained altered; in plume-affected areas the researchers found limited detectable residual sedimentation impacts and some biological assemblages with abundance similar to controls. Recovery was not uniform across the affected areas.

Evidence from another collector cannot measure Eureka's effects. The study shows why comparing seafloor conditions before and after collection, and following recovery over time, matters.

What happens before commercial use

The ISA says there is no commercial exploitation of deep-sea mineral resources in the international seabed area it oversees and that its exploitation regulations remain under development. The authority distinguishes the occurrence of minerals from their economic recoverability, which depends on environmental constraints, metal prices and technological readiness.