nodule

Some sediment brought to the surface with the nodules gets dumped back into the ocean.

The initial discovery triggered a global scientific row - there was criticism of the findings from some scientists and from deep sea mining companies that plan to harvest the precious metals in the seabed nodules.

It is what scientists call a polymetallic nodule, created over millennia as minerals accumulate on the seabed.

One specialized subset of transcription initiation sites the group found was in root nodules, a structure on legumes' roots that harbors interaction between the plant and Rhizobia bacteria.

In the 1960s, an American mining engineer named John Mero publicized a tantalizing idea: that these nodules were an untapped fortune ready for the taking.