Scientists published a study Monday that claims to have found groundbreaking evidence for the production of “dark oxygen.”
Prof. Andrew Sweetman led the seafloor ecology and biogeochemistry research group at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) behind the study. The researchers said they found deep-sea oxygen production (or “dark oxygen”) by metallic nodules in the Pacific Ocean where no natural light could reach, a SAMS statement reads. (RELATED: Ancient Crystals Reveal 4-Billion-Year-Old Secret Of Life)
“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. 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?” Sweetman said.
WATCH: In a new @NatureGeosci paper published today, deep-sea scientists led by Prof Andrew Sweetman of SAMS have found a new mechanism for oxygen production.
‘Dark oxygen’ occurs at thousands of metres below the sea surface!
Read the paper: https://t.co/osUMmRjgHn#DarkOxygen pic.twitter.com/qidTG0AjhE
— Scottish Association for Marine Science (@SAMSoceannews) July 22, 2024
The scientists observed in their study that nodules containing metals like nickel, cobalt and manganese at the bottom of the ocean carried a high electric charge and are key to this groundbreaking process. “Given high voltage potentials (up to 0.95 V) on nodule surfaces, we hypothesize that seawater electrolysis may contribute to this dark oxygen production,” the scientists wrote. Seawater electrolysis is the separation of seawater into hydrogen and oxygen.
This is the first time that scientists were able to observe oxygen generation without any known involvement by organisms (such as photosynthetic plants), Live Science reported.
“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. We would come home and recalibrate the sensors but over the course of 10 years, these strange oxygen readings kept showing up,” Sweetman said. The scientist added that “a back-up method” was employed, and when it confirmed the previous readings, he knew they “were onto something ground-breaking and unthought-of.”
“In my opinion, this is one of the most exciting findings in ocean science in recent times,” SAMS Director Prof. Nicholas Owens said. “The conventional view is that oxygen was first produced around three billion years ago by ancient microbes called cyanobacteria and there was a gradual development of complex life thereafter. The potential that there was an alternative source requires us to have a radical rethink.”
