History Folder

There is a long and interesting history of deep sea mining projects in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone; from the operations of the Kennecott Consortium in the 1970s, through to ongoing work by The Metals Company.

Hughes Glomar Explorer was built in 1973 as a deep sea mining production support vessel. However, this was a CIA cover-story to hide a clandestine project to recover a Soviet nuclear submarine.

Project Azorian was a huge covert CIA operation that combined deep sea mining, a billionaire industrialist, a sunken submarine, and cold war espionage.