Potato-sized concretions formed over tens of millions of years on the abyssal plain — each one a dense matrix of manganese, iron, nickel, copper and cobalt. The Clarion–Clipperton Zone holds an estimated 21 billion tonnes of nodules, the largest known accumulation of nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese together, at water depths the continental mining industry cannot reach.
Commonly 2–8 cm across, up to about 20. Potato-shaped, dark brown to black, and heavier than it looks.
Millimetres per million years — among the slowest processes known. A nodule the size of a fist is older than the genus Homo.
Abyssal plains at 4,000–6,000 m. The Clarion–Clipperton Zone, between Hawaii and Mexico, is the largest known field.
Four metals in one object, lying loose on the sediment — nothing to strip, and no shaft.
Nodule scan rendered live · 4,000–6,000 m
Hydrogenetic nodules take metal from seawater and grow slowest; diagenetic ones take it from the sediment and run richer per tonne while lying thinner on the ground. Most of the zone is a mixture.
Composition figures are USGS reference material NOD-P-1, a nodule collected at 14°50′N 124°28′W, 4,300 m — interlaboratory estimates (Flanagan & Gottfried 1980, USGS PP 1155), not certified values. Bars are scaled against manganese; the five metals are 37.6% of the mass and the balance is oxygen, water and silicate. Across 308 CCZ nodules the average is Mn 27.5%, Ni 1.21%, Cu 1.06%, Co 0.26% (Halbach 1988). The 21 billion tonne figure is a published estimate of nodules in place across the zone — not a mineral resource under any reporting code, and not specific to any ground. Illustrative, not observational: the nodule is a third-party scan, not survey imagery, and no image here depicts Aurea Ora ground. Zone boundaries follow published ISA area definitions. No mineral resource, mineral reserve or exploration target has been estimated for any Aurea Ora ground and none is stated or implied. Nothing here is an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. © 2026 Aurea Ora Ltd. The nodule is a photogrammetric scan of an accessioned specimen — “Manganese nodule” (inv. I/08460/98) by the German Maritime Museum, one of a convolute of five, CC BY via Sketchfab, reduced from 34,993 triangles for the browser.