In the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, researchers found that polymetallic nodules-metal-rich rocks spread across the seafloor-may be creating oxygen in complete darkness. Acting like tiny natural batteries, these nodules split seawater into hydrogen and oxygen through electrochemical reactions, without sunlight or microbes.
This process, now called “dark oxygen,” challenges the long-standing idea that oxygen can only be produced through
photosynthesis. It could offer clues about how life began on Earth-and how it might exist on other planets.
Thank god they’re gone in 20 years. Those deep sea creatures don’t need oxygen anyway.
And trump just signed a new act to allow that saved to be cleaned out.
This is what they want to strip mine from the ocean floor.
Let’s see… we’ve replaced our forests with gas stations, burnt down the rainforests in favor of monoculture farms, acidified the oceans to kill all the diatoms… I think we’ve put Earth’s oxygen production systems into as much peril as possible.
Billionaires: hold my deep sea mining rig.
These were 100% put here by terraforming aliens to seed life.
more like dank oxygen, amiright
The article is focusing on the oxygen being generated, but what about the hydrogen? We’ve got a budding hydrogen energy industry looking for efficient ways of harvesting it, and we seemingly have this mechanism that can turn sea water into hydrogen without any external power input?
Subnautica devs: write that down!
