This story initially appeared on WIRED Italy and was translated from Italian.
For greater than a decade, Andrew Sweetman and his colleagues have been finding out the ocean flooring and its ecosystems, notably within the Pacific Ocean’s Clarion-Clipperton Zone, an space suffering from polymetallic nodules. These potato-sized rocks comprise invaluable metals — lithium, copper, cobalt, manganese and nickel — which might be used to make batteries. They’re tempting rewards for deep sea mining firmswho’re growing applied sciences that can permit them to be dropped at the floor.
The nodules could possibly be a possible supply of battery components, however Sweetman believes they may already be producing one thing else fully: oxygen. The aspect is normally produced by organisms that photosynthesize, however mild does not attain 4,000 metres under the ocean’s floor. Fairly, as Sweetman and his group on the Scottish Marine Science Affiliation recommend in a brand new articleThe nodules could be the initiators of a response that produces this “darkish” oxygen from seawater.
Sweetman first seen one thing odd in 2013. He and his group have been working to measure oxygen flux in localized areas of the seafloor in nodule-rich areas. The oxygen flux appeared to extend on the seafloor, regardless of there being no photosynthetic organisms close by, a lot in order that the researchers thought it was an instrumental anomaly.
Nevertheless, the identical discovering was repeated in 2021, albeit utilizing a unique method to measurement. The scientists measured modifications in oxygen ranges inside a benthic chamber, an instrument that collects sediment and seawater to create closed samples of the seafloor setting. The instrument allowed them to research, amongst different issues, how oxygen was consumed by microorganisms within the pattern setting. The oxygen trapped within the chamber ought to have decreased over time as organisms within the water and sediment consumed it, however the reverse occurred: regardless of the darkish circumstances stopping any photosynthetic reactions, oxygen ranges within the benthic chamber elevated.
The issue wanted to be investigated. First, the group was assured that there have been no oxygen-producing microorganisms. As soon as they have been satisfied, they hypothesized that polymetallic nodules trapped within the benthic chamber could be concerned. After some lab exams, Sweetman says, they discovered that the nodules acted like a geobattery: They generated a small electrical present (about 1 volt every) that break up water molecules into their two elements, hydrogen and oxygen, in a course of known as electrolysis.
Nevertheless, it’s not fully clear how precisely these nodules produce oxygen: it’s not recognized what generates {the electrical} present, whether or not the response is steady and, most significantly, whether or not sufficient oxygen is produced to maintain the ecosystem.
Then there’s the larger query: What if the electrolysis attributable to polymetallic nodules was the spark that began life on Earth? It’s an thrilling speculation that deserves to be explored additional, Sweetman says. It’s attainable that it may occur on different worlds, too, and could possibly be a possible supply of alien life.
These prospects add weight to the argument that the deep seabed is a fragile setting that must be protected against industrial exploitation. (There’s already a petition signed by greater than 800 ocean scientists from 44 nations highlighting the broader environmental dangers of deep-sea mining and calling for a halt to it.)
However with so many questions left unanswered, some are questioning the findings. The largest critic comes from the world of seabed mining: Patrick Downes of Metals Firm, a seabed mining firm that operates within the deep sea — the identical waters Sweetman studied and which partly funded his analysis.says that the outcomes are the results of oxygen contamination from exterior sources, and that his firm will quickly launch a paper refuting the thesis put ahead by Sweetman’s group.