A recent study suggests that metals on the deep ocean floor generate “black oxygen” nearly 3,500m feet below the surface, “The Independent” reported on Tuesday.
Andrew Sweetman of the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) discovered this so-called “dark oxygen” while doing ship-based fieldwork in the Pacific Ocean.
While investigating the bottom of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, Professor Sweetman made the finding on a rugged undersea ridge that stretches approximately 4,500 miles across the Pacific Ocean’s northeast quarter.
“When we first got this data, we thought the sensors were faulty because every study ever done in the deep sea has only seen oxygen being consumed rather than produced,” Prof. Sweetman said.
“We would come home and recalibrate the sensors, but, over 10 years, these strange oxygen readings kept showing up.”
The scientists then tried a second procedure, which yielded the same result.
The study found that oxygen may also be created on the bottom of the sea, where no light reaches, to sustain oxygen-breathing (aerobic) marine life that lives in full darkness.
The discovery calls into question long-held beliefs that only photosynthetic organisms, such as plants and algae, produce oxygen on Earth by combining sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide.
It may even put into question how life on Earth originated.
The finding centers on polymetallic nodules, which are natural.
mineral deposits that occur on the ocean floor. They range in size from small particles to an average potato and are made up of various minerals.
Co-author Franz Geiger of Northwestern University in the United States stated that the polymetallic nodules that create this oxygen include metals such as cobalt, nickel, copper, lithium, and manganese, all key materials used in batteries.
Prof Geiger discovered that rust, when coupled with seawater, may create electricity.
The researchers explored if the deep-ocean nodules generated enough electricity to produce oxygen. While 1.5 volts, the same voltage as an AA battery, is sufficient to split seawater, voltages of up to 0.95 volts were measured on the surface of single nodules. When many nodules were grouped together, the voltage appeared to be significantly higher, similar to when batteries are linked in series, the study discovered.
Prof Geiger said: “It appears that we discovered a natural ‘geobattery.’