Improvement in undersea mining apparatus, of the kind wherein a hydraulic suction conduit riser is towed from a forwardly moving surface ship while a mixture of liquids and sea-floor solids (such as sea water and manganese nodules) is gathered at the deep sea floor and transported to the sea surface in a liquid-solids flow pumped up through the riser, comprises liquid-solids flow transition chamber that is connected to riser by an intermediate conveyance duct and towed along the undersea floor to gather and transmit solids from undersea floor to riser. Transition chamber has three mutually communicating openings: a forward-facing entrance for gathering sea floor solids, a rearward-facing entrance for admitting a hydraulically induced flow of sea water and a forwardly upward-facing exit port joined with the conveyance duct to direct transmission of liquid-solids mixture flow from chamber into conveyance duct. Chamber can be mounted as a tail pipe suspended from framework of vehicle having runners for sliding along undersea floor with forward entrance held near floorline.
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