A mysterious phenomenon first observed in 2013 aboard a vessel in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean appeared so preposterous, it convinced ocean scientist Andrew Sweetman that his monitoring equipment was faulty.
Tuesday, July 23, 2024 12:35PM
Polymetallic nodules found in the seafloor in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, such as the one seen here, are rich in manganese, copper, cobalt and nickel.Now, his team's research is challenging this long-held assumption, finding oxygen produced without photosynthesis.The study, published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, demonstrates how much is still unknown about the ocean depths and underscores what's at stake in the push to exploit the ocean floor for rare metals and minerals.
What he expected the sensor to detect was oxygen levels falling slowly over time as microscopic animals breathed it in. From that data, he planned to calculate something called "sediment community oxygen consumption," which provides important information about the activity of seabed fauna and microorganisms.
The team took some of the samples of sediment, seawater and polymetallic nodules back to study in the lab to try to understand exactly how oxygen was being produced.Through a series of experiments, the researchers ruled out biological processes such as microbes and zoned in on the nodules themselves as the phenomenon's origin. Perhaps, they reasoned, it was oxygen being released from manganese oxide in the nodule. But such a release wasn't the cause, Sweetman said.
These readings were less than the voltage of 1.5 required for seawater electrolysis but suggested that significant voltages could occur when nodules are clustered together. The International Seabed Authority, under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, regulates mining in the region and has issued exploration contracts. The group is meeting in Jamaica this month to consider new rules to allow companies to extract metals from the ocean floor.
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