Abstract
The Metal Mining Agency of Japan (MMAJ) owns two research vessels that are Hakurei-maru and Hakurei-maru No.2. Since 1975, MMAJ has been surveying deepsea manganese nodules, cobalt rich crust and hydrothermal polymetalic deposits. Japan has got exclusive mining claimes for manganese nodules covering 75, 000 squar kilometers off Hawaii on. December 1987 under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Compared with land base mineral resources, there are huge amounts of untapped mineral resources on the deepsea floor. But only several small parts of sea floor are explored and searched. MMAJ has been carrying out exploration and research on these resources not only for present but also for future generation. In this paper deepsea mineral resources and research vessels will be introduced.
