The Significance of Nanomineral Particles during the Growth Process of Polymetallic Nodules in the Western Pacific Ocean.

As a huge reservoir of economic metallic elements, oceanic polymetallic nodules have important strategic significance and are one of the main research objects in marine geology, especially their formation process and genetic mechanism. In this study, polymetallic nodules from the cobalt-rich crust exploration contract area in the Western Pacific Ocean were taken as the research object. Optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) were used for observation and testing. The results indicate that many nanomineral particles, mainly composed of Fe and Mn, developed in polymetallic nodules from the western Pacific Ocean. The solid-liquid interface process of nanomineral particles plays an important role in the growth and evolution of nodules. We propose that the growth process of polymetallic nodules in the western Pacific Ocean can be divided into three stages. First, terrigenous detritus nucleates, and nanomineral particles composed of Fe, Mn, and other elements form, aggregate and attach to the core to form the initial shell. Second, a dense layer of the shell forms under stable conditions. In the third stage, the redox conditions of the nodules change, and the polymetallic nodules experience a variety of interface process modifications.