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Challenger's
voyage dredged tonnes of mud from the seabed, all over the world. This
was sorted, stored and later studied. Among their discoveries was that large areas of the deep sea floor are
littered with manganese nodules. These are rich in copper, nickel and cobalt
and are potentially a valuable resourse. Challenger also proved that life existed on the seabed -
a conclusion thought unlikely by the majority of scientists only a few
years before the voyage. |
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But it was also the first time
that material from space was positively identified. Tiny particles recovered
from sediment were believed to be extraterrestrial because their magnetism
indicated iron, and were thought to be parts of larger meteorites that
split off during passage through the Earth's atmosphere. However, recent
study indicates that they were actually already tiny when they entered
the atmosphere - having formed from extraterrestrial dust from comets and
asteroids. |
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