[ Blub ! ]
[ Blubberdeblub blub blubber de blub ! ]
[ Where we come from we talk 'blub' ]
[ I'm a deep sea manganese nodule (better: 'a polymetallic nodule'), from the Pacific (east of Hawaii) somewhat 5.500 meters deep under water on the ocean floor... It took me a long time to swim up! But hey, there was no good Guinness under water and when there was, it tasted salty... I'm one of those minerals that is not one mineral but better... I'm more... I consist of todorokite, birnessite, some other Mn-compounds and a lot of other (rare) elements (so much that I prefer to refer to myself as 'we'). There are about 500 billion tons of us on the seabed so there is a lot of us... Usually we are enriched in Mn, Cu, Ni, Zn, Mo, Ga, V and Rb whereas my friends from red clay sea beds are usually enriched in Fe, Co, Ti, U, Th, Y, Cr, Nb and Rare Earth Elements (REE). You were looking at me and you were thinking "shit, he's ugly!". Ha ha ha, I knew it! But now you see how special I am: now you see my inner beauty..... But... It's still not quite clear how we were born and where we grew, but it is now generally accepted that we grew on the seabed or to 2,5 meters deep in the seabed, but not deeper. Deeper my friends are smaller and smaller and near to- or on the surface we can become to 5-10cm big. To grow the size I am now (ca.5cm), I had to be under water for about 8 millions years! Usually there's a little piece of basalt inside me as core, or a shark tooth (that really hurts...). I remember that when we were growing there were those ugly stinking black smokers around us, exhausting a lot of the elements that are now in my body. That together with some bacteria inside me does not make a healthy environment to live in, believe me... So I left... I'm very happy that those black smokers are not allowed anymore in restaurants. How can I taste my food when there's all that black smoke in my food, and my clothes were always stinking after a night in the pub... ]