It has long been understood that photosynthesis creates oxygen, but researchers believe they've found oxygen being created in parts of the ocean with no light.
A deep sea shark and several eels are attracted to bait placed at the summit of the Cook seamount, as seen from the Pisces V submersible during a dive to the previously unexplored seamount off the coast of Hawaii's Big Island on Sept. 6, 2016.
Until now, it was thought that oxygen was created only through photosynthesis, a process that requires sunlight. But the discovery casts doubt on that theory and raises new questions about the origins of life itself.
Researchers conducted tests on the seafloor and also collected samples to test aboveground, and they came up with the same result: that oxygen levels increased near the polymetallic nodules.Seawater can be split into hydrogen and oxygen with 1.5 volts of electricity, which is the amount in a AA battery. Researchers found that some of the nodules possessed as much as 0.95 volts of electricity, and multiple nodules together produced even higher voltages.
But he also said that mining would have to be conducted in a way that did not eliminate oxygen for life forms in that part of the ocean.
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