cost is a geologist who works for germany's institute for geosciences and natural resources which is part of the federal ministry of economics and technology. there are scientists here from several other countries as you can see from these flags. stephen grasp is a geo chemist who works for canada's department of energy and environment his work here will focus on the composition of rocks. american biologist john spear will study microbes that could be used in research on antibiotic resistant bacteria . these are. little green top tubes is $15.00 each. and they. are for extracting d.n.a. out of samples all collect like a little bit of a pencil eraser size amount of material and i'll insert it into these tubes and it will shake it around i'll take it home will extract d.n.a. out of it home. the weather is good today so the scientists head out to do some work. when these mountains were formed millions of years ago the local environment looked much different there was no ice cover in the land was covered with plants and trees . geologists take a long term view of life on earth they think

researchers from germany's federal institute. 4 geosciences and natural resources are hoping to find treasures on the ocean floor using this device. the device is lowered for 4 kilometers until it reaches the ocean floor where it deploys a probe into the seabed it's open at the bottom and penetrates about 40 to 50 centimeters deep into the sediment then this flap closes and it's hauled back to the surface the whole procedure takes about an hour and a half. time and again they set out on the pacific to discover just how many natural resources can be found on the seabed they're looking for pieces of rock called manganese nodules they don't only contain the trace mineral manganese but also other valuable metals such as cobalt essential for the lithium ion batteries in electric cars and smartphones. since 2006 german scientists have been exploring 2 sections of an area between hawaii and mexico. and it's important for countries with few natural resources like germany and south korea to stand on their own 2 feet and not have to rely on imports from perhaps politically unstable countries like the congo. in addition this seabed nodules contain more valuable metal