Dark oxygen made by deep sea 'batteries'
Dark oxygen made by deep sea 'batteries'
The discovery that lumps of metal on the seafloor produce oxygen raises questions over plans to mine the deep ocean.
About half the oxygen we breathe comes from the ocean. But, before this discovery, it was understood that it was made by marine plants photosynthesising - something that requires sunlight.
Here, at depths of 5km, where no sunlight can penetrate, the oxygen appears to be produced by naturally occurring metallic “nodules” which split seawater - H2O - into hydrogen and oxygen.
Several mining companies have plans to collect these nodules, which marine scientists fear could disrupt the newly discovered process - and damage any marine life that depends on the oxygen they make.
I can almost bet that the nodules are the substrate for a bacterium that thrives and facilitates that chemosynthesis.