2024-07-23 22:15:07
In the depths of the Pacific Ocean, where total darkness reigns, scientists have discovered an amazing source of oxygen, produced not by living organisms, but by deposits of metal-containing minerals at the bottom, reported AFP.
The discovery calls into question the theory of the origin of life on Earth.
According to new research published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the strange “black oxygen” was discovered at a depth of more than 4 kilometers in the abyssal plane of the Clarion-Clipperton geological fault zone in the central Pacific Ocean.
The place is rich in rare metals such as manganese, nickel, cobalt, lithium and others, needed in particular for the production of batteries for electric vehicles, wind turbines, photovoltaic panels and mobile phones.
It is in this area that a Scottish Society for Marine Science (SAMS) vessel is sampling. The aim is to assess the impact of such studies of the earth’s layers on an ecosystem in which the absence of light does not allow photosynthesis and therefore the presence of plants, but at the same time abounds with unique animal species.
For the purpose of the study, scientists are trying to measure oxygen consumption on the ocean floor, explains lead author Andrew Sweetman.
Expecting that its concentration dropped because it was consumed by the organisms living at these depths, researchers observed the opposite – an increase in oxygen levels in the water above the sediments, in complete darkness and therefore – without photosynthesis.
The surprise was so great that the researchers initially decided that their underwater sensors had gone wrong. They are conducting experiments aboard the ship to see if the same thing happens on the surface by incubating the same sediments and the nodules they contain in the dark. The specialists again found that the oxygen content had increased.
They discovered that deposits of metal-bearing minerals on the floor of the Pacific Ocean produce oxygen as a result of an electrochemical interaction with water molecules. Similarly, this gas could have formed at the bottom of Earth’s primordial ocean.
“The emergence of aerobic life on Earth required sources of oxygen, a role traditionally assumed by photosynthetic organisms. We now know that its molecules also originate in the depths of the oceans, where there is no light. This makes us wonder once again where and when the first aerobic inhabitants of Earth appeared,” says Andrew Sweetman.
Examining the properties of the nodules in a laboratory shows that they produce oxygen as a result of the minerals in question being natural batteries that generate an electric current when they come into contact with seawater. The movement of the current through the water causes it to break down and accumulate oxygen in those layers of the ocean that are near the nodules. Scientists believe that the accumulated gas plays an important role in the life of microbes and other organisms that inhabit the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.