It served as a cover story for the most expensive and spectacular CIA operation of all times. It offers hope to people who once had everything – but then lost everything: the manganese nodule. Nations all over the world are going to great lengths to retrieve these lumps of metal from the seabed. But can industrial mining really succeed in removing the nodules from depths of four thousand metres? What will happen to the deep-sea ecosystem if man reaches this last untouched part of the Earth?

We accompany scientists on the research vessel SONNE during their expedition to the so-called Manganese Nodule Belt in the Pacific Ocean, where they search for answers that may determine our future.

WRITER: Tamar Baumgarten-Noort, Friederike Lorenz     DIRECTOR: Friederike Lorenz     CAMERA: Bastian Barenbrock, Joachim Seck, Dieter Stürmer     EDITOR: Igor Garbuzenko     MUSIC: Paul Rabiger     COMMISSIONING EDITOR: Ann-Marie Lerch (ZDF), Marita Hübinger (Arte)