Scientists have discovered metallic minerals on the deep ocean floor that produce “dark oxygen,” according to findings presented in a new study that potentially upend past assumptions that our planet’s oxygen is produced solely by photosynthetic organisms.
The discovery, made at a depth of 13,000 feet below the ocean surface, shows that oxygen can be produced even in the complete darkness of Earth’s sea bottoms. The new findings could potentially challenge our current understanding of the origins of aerobic life on Earth.
THE DISCOVERY OF ‘DARK OXYGEN’
“For aerobic life to begin on the planet, there had to be oxygen, and our understanding has been that Earth’s oxygen supply began with photosynthetic organisms,” said Andrew Sweetman of the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), who made the groundbreaking discovery while sampling the seabed of a mountainous submarine ridge in the Pacific Ocean known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
“But we now know that there is oxygen produced in the deep sea, where there is no light,” Sweetman added.
According to Sweetman and his colleagues, the key to the discovery involves polymetallic nodules, natural mineral deposits on the ocean floor. These nodules, some of which can be as small as tiny sand grains and others as large as a baseball, are composed of metals such as cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, and nickel, all of which are critical for battery production.
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