> They get covered by silt and deep ocean detritus that is easy to break and mine with zero harm to life-forms, tube worms etc. What is needed is a deep sea sieve with a separator/flusher connected to a conveyor to the surface.
What effect does it have to disturb/stir up all that silt? Isn‘t that going to create huge plumes that might take ages to settle? Could that be using up the little oxygen left at these depths?