Scientists may have spotted another route for oxygen production in the deep ocean floor. They discovered oxygen-emitting metallic minerals 13,000 feet below the surface.
Aiming to study the seabed and its features in the Pacific Ocean focusing on the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, an international team of scientists undertaking the research ended up discovering polymetallic nodules on the deep-ocean floor producing oxygen.
The minerals were in the deep end of the ocean living in absolute darkness. This finding also challenges the previous notion that only photosynthetic organisms can generate Earth’s oxygen.
Franz Geiger, co-author of the study and leader of the electrochemistry experiments told Interesting Engineering that the study opens up possibilities for researching potentially other planetary bodies with oceans.
“Especially when considering ocean moons such as Europa,” he says.
Photosynthetic organisms not the sole oxygen producer anymore
So far, experts have believed that photosynthetic organisms like plants and algae have the sole power to produce oxygen but the new finding opens up possibilities for another mineral altogether.
Hailing it as “dark oxygen,” Andrew Sweetman, from the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), discovered the oxygen-yielding metallic minerals when he was undertaking ship-based fieldwork in the Pacific Ocean.
He was particularly assessing and sampling the seabed of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
He said in a statement by Northwestern University that scientists are now aware of oxygen being produced in the deep sea where the light is absent.
“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 Sweetman, also leader of the Seafloor Ecology and Biogeochemistry research group at SAMS.
“But we now know that there is oxygen produced in the deep sea, where there is no light. I think we, therefore, need to revisit questions like: Where could aerobic life have begun?”
The oxygen is emitted from polymetallic nodules which have been described as natural mineral deposits that form on the surface of the ocean. They’re a mix of different minerals with sizes ranging from tiny particles to an average-sized potato.
In the statement, Geiger explained that the polymetallic nodules that produce this oxygen contain metals such as cobalt, nickel, copper, lithium, and manganese — which are all critical elements used in batteries.
“Several large-scale mining companies now aim to extract these precious elements from the seafloor at depths of 10,000 to 20,000 feet below the surface,” he added.
“We need to rethink how to mine these materials so that we do not deplete the oxygen source for deep-sea life.”
The data scientists measured indicate that the oxygen is produced through electrochemical reactions within the nodules, Geiger told IE .
Natural geobattery
Not only did the discovery confirm a new oxygen production source but also upon lab assessment, scientists found these minerals to be naturally occurring “geobattery.”
“It appears that we discovered a natural ‘geobattery,’” Geiger stated. “These geobatteries are the basis for a possible explanation of the ocean’s dark oxygen production.”
They employed seawater electrolysis, a chemical reaction to ascertain voltages produced by the nodules from the ocean floor.
The researchers have gone so far as to claim that the total mass of polymetallic nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone alone is enough to meet the global demand for energy for decades.
Geiger has still cautioned against conventional mining of metallic minerals as bacteria in from 1980’s mining practices had still not recovered.
The next step will be to pursue mechanistic questions this work addresses after securing funding, Geiger told IE .
The study was published in the journal – Nature Geoscience .
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