Clipperton Fracture Zone

The Clipperton Fracture Zone, also known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, is a geological submarine fracture zone of the Pacific Ocean, with a length of around 4500 miles (7240 km). The zone spans approximately . It is one of the five major lineations of the northern Pacific floor, south of the Clarion Fracture Zone, discovered by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1950. The fracture, an unusually mountainous topographical feature, begins east-northeast of the Line Islands and ends in the  Middle America Trench off the coast of Central America. It roughly forms a line on the same latitude as  Kiribati and Clipperton Island. 

In 2016, the seafloor in the Clipperton Fracture Zone – an area being targeted for deep-sea mining – was found to contain an abundance and diversity of life, with more than half of the species collected being new to science. The zone is sometimes referred to as the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCFZ), with reference to Clarion Island at the northern edge of the zone.

Geography 
The fracture can be divided into four distinct parts:

- The first, 127°–113° W, is a broad, low welt of some 900 miles, with a central trough 10 to 30 miles wide;

- the second, 113°-107° W, is a volcano enriched ridge, 60 miles wide and 330 miles long;

- the third, 107°-101° W, is a low welt with a central trough 1,200–2,400 feet deep which transects the Albatross Plateau; and

- the fourth, 101°-96° W, contains the Tehuantepec Ridge which extends 400 miles northeast to the continental margin.

The Nova-Canton Trough is often seen as an extension of the fracture.

Deep sea mining 
The zone, which is administered by the International Seabed Authority, contains nodules made up of various rare-earth elements. The zone has been divided into 16 mining claims spanning approximately . Further nine areas, each covering , have been set aside for conservation. The International Seabed Authority estimates that the total amount of nodules in the Clarion Clipperton Zone exceeds 21 billions of tons (Bt), containing about 5.95 Bt of manganese, 0.27 Bt of nickel, 0.23 Bt of copper and 0.05 Bt of cobalt.

References

Category:Fracture zones
Category:Pacific Ocean