On February 2, 2026 — just 18 days ago — Japan's deep-sea drilling vessel Chikyu made history in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Working at a depth of roughly 6,000 meters, the ship successfully lifted rare earth-rich muddy sediment from the abyssal seafloor. It was the first successful deep-sea rare earth extraction at that depth ever recorded.
For years, the deep-sea mining industry existed in a state of perpetual "almost" — technically promising, economically compelling, perpetually just around the corner. The Chikyu operation ended that. This is not a laboratory experiment. It is not a simulation. Japan pulled critical minerals from the crushing darkness of the abyss, and they work.
What the Chikyu Actually Did: A World-First Deep-Sea Rare Earth Extraction Explained
The Chikyu — operated by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) — is primarily known as a scientific drilling vessel. It holds the record for the deepest ocean drilling in history. But the February 2 operation was not pure science. It was an extraction proof-of-concept, conducted on a deposit of rare earth-rich mud located southeast of Minamitorishima Island (Marcus Island) in the Western Pacific — squarely within Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone.
Unlike the polymetallic nodules scattered across the Clarion-Clipperton Zone that most deep-sea mining ventures target, Japan's Minamitorishima deposit is a rare earth-rich sediment layer — a muddy substrate formed by the slow accumulation of deep-sea clay enriched with elements like dysprosium, terbium, yttrium, and neodymium over millions of years. These are the specific rare earths used in the permanent magnets of wind turbines and EV motors — the precise materials where China's supply chain dominance is most acute and most strategically dangerous.
Breaking China's 90% Rare Earth Monopoly: Why Japan Just Made Its Most Important Strategic Move in Decades
The rare earths in Japan's Pacific deposits are the specific elements — dysprosium, neodymium, yttrium — where China's processing monopoly is most absolute. Credit: Sliceisop / Pexels
China controls an estimated 60% of global rare earth mining and over 85–90% of global rare earth processing and refining. For the heavy rare earths — the high-value elements critical for EV motors and wind turbine magnets — that figure is even higher. Every Japanese automaker, every European wind farm developer, and every American defense contractor is dependent on Chinese supply chains for these materials in ways that have no quick onshore fix.
Japan has understood this vulnerability longer than almost any other nation. Tokyo experienced it directly in 2010, when China temporarily halted rare earth exports to Japan during a territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands — a supply shock that sent Japanese industrial costs surging and accelerated a national strategic push toward mineral independence that has been running, steadily, ever since.
The Minamitorishima deposit is the culmination of that push. Early estimates from the University of Tokyo suggest the site contains enough rare earth oxides to supply Japan's domestic demand for hundreds of years — and enough yttrium alone to meet global demand for 780 years. If those estimates hold and extraction scales, Japan would effectively remove itself from dependence on Chinese rare earth supply chains entirely. That is not an incremental improvement. It is a geopolitical realignment.
This strategic context sits alongside Japan's parallel moves in the US market — including the $36 billion critical minerals and energy investment commitment under the Trump trade framework, which includes synthetic diamond manufacturing and offshore energy infrastructure explicitly designed to reduce Western dependence on Chinese-controlled supply chains.
The Deep-Sea Gold Rush Is No Longer a Metaphor: What Comes After the Chikyu
The Chikyu extraction changes the calculus for every nation and corporation watching the deep-sea mining space. Until February 2, the argument against moving aggressively was partly technical — the engineering challenges of operating at 6,000 meters were genuine unknowns. That uncertainty has been substantially reduced. Japan has the data now. Others will follow.
The implications connect directly to the governance questions examined in our analysis of who legally owns the ocean floor. Japan's Minamitorishima deposit sits within its own EEZ — no ISA license required, no international legal friction. But the Chikyu success will accelerate pressure on the International Seabed Authority to finalize its long-delayed exploitation regulations for international waters, where the richest polymetallic nodule fields sit and where the legal framework remains genuinely unresolved.
Meanwhile, the environmental reckoning described in our coverage of the green paradox intensifies with each operational milestone. Deep-sea sediment extraction generates plumes. It displaces ecosystems. The species living at 6,000 meters in the Pacific abyssal plain have not been catalogued. The Chikyu proved the technology works. Science has not yet answered what it costs — and as the battery metal crunch escalates demand, the window to ask that question carefully is closing.
The deep-sea gold rush is real. It started on February 2nd. And nobody is fully ready for what comes next.
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