Mining the ocean floor is one of those perennial futuristic things that is perennially ten years in the future.

But this time high concentrations of gold and silver ore were found in the vicinity of Aogashima Island. Gold in them there underwater hills may provide the kind of motivation to get a gold rush going. Reports the Japan Times:

A team of researchers at the University of Tokyo have discovered high-grade gold ore on a seabed off a remote island south of Tokyo. The ore, collected from a hydrothermal deposit at an underwater volcanic crater off Aogashima, contained as much as 275 grams of gold per ton, a figure that is higher than usual for such deposits on land or sea in Japan.

If you think this sounds like the premise for a James Bond flick, well, check out Aogashima Island. It even looks like the lair of a James Bond villain! (Click to embiggen.)


Those blue spots aren't water. They appear to be roofs, Quonset huts and greenhouses, perhaps. Aogashima Island, 222 miles south of Tokyo, is the the southernmost inhabited island of the Izu archipelago.

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