According to the latest reports, an advanced Chinese submarine has discovered large deposits of precious metal including gold and silver in the Indian Ocean.

A development that may have strong strategic implications, China's 'Jiaolong' deep-seamanned submersible has said that it has been able to find large metal deposits in the Indian Ocean during its maiden 118-day exploratory voyage of the ocean.

China's submersible completed a total of 13 dives to study different hydrothermal areas, hydrothermal fluids and deep-sea biodiversity during its 118-day mission. The Chinese team was able to gather a large amount of data and more than 700 samples. The team discovered several new hydrothermal vents and its findings could help research into resources and environments of seafloor sulfide deposits that may include several precious metals.

Experts have said that Deep-sea "chimney vents" are like seabed deposits containing copper, zinc, gold and silver. The country had gained approval in 2012 to explore 10,000 sqkms of polymetallic sulphide ore deposit in an international seabed region of the southwest Indian Ocean. The approval was given by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) for a period of fifteen years.