Pioneering deep sea mining machines made on Tyneside

Two of the world's biggest, and most powerful, deep sea mining machines have been unveiled on Tyneside.

Soil Machine Dynamics (SMD) Ltd in Wallsend have spent the past five years designing and creating the robotic machines which are designed to work remotely on the sea bed, scouring out precious metals and minerals.

Both are now bound for the Pacific Ocean off Papua New Guinea where they are due to begin deep sea work in 2018.

Mike Jones, the Deputy Chief Executive at SMD, says there is a huge, largely untapped, mining potential on the bed of the sea