NSF awards UAF $678,748 to study seafloor mineral formation at Davidson Seamount

Federal Grant Funds Deep-Sea Minerals Research at Old Pacific Crust Site

A University of Alaska Fairbanks research account will carry $678,748 in new federal money for seafloor work performed roughly 2,000 nautical miles from campus. The National Science Foundation made the standard grant on July 28 under its Critical Minerals & Materials program, with a period of performance running September 1, 2026, through August 31, 2029. The program officer of record is Gail Christeson, in NSF's Directorate for Geosciences.

The study site is Davidson Seamount in the eastern Pacific, on seafloor roughly 20 million years old. According to the award abstract, it is one of the few places where hydrothermal fluid flow, the movement of heated water through oceanic crust, has been observed in crust that old. Active hydrothermal sites can deposit critical minerals and support seafloor communities. Principal investigator Charles G. Wheat, listed with a Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute address, will lead surveys of bathymetry, seismic reflection and heat flow, along with fluid sampling from sediments, the water column and springs. The award also funds undergraduate and graduate training and school outreach.

The project is basic science rather than extraction, but the environments it maps are contested ground: contributors to a UCAR ocean-exploration workshop white paper have argued that ferromanganese crusts function as habitat for sponges and corals, not only as mineral resources.