The research team that discovered that oxygen is produced in the depths of the oceans, which it has named “dark oxygen”, announced that it is organizing a program of missions to determine how the gas is created and to uncover evidence that will lead to its detection on other worlds, possibly in our solar system.
In the summer of 2024, with a publication in the journal “Nature Geoscience”, (“Evidence of dark oxygen production at the abyssal seafloor“) the research team reported that it had detected oxygen production on the ocean floor. It was an unexpected discovery since approximately 50% of the oxygen we breathe on the planet may be produced in the oceans, but this process was thought to be exclusively produced by marine plants through photosynthesis, so the presence of sunlight is necessary. The “dark oxygen”, as it was called, is probably produced in the abyss by pieces of metal.
The researchers found oxygen production at depths of five km. below the sea surface and estimate that this oxygen is produced by natural mineral “nodules” that break down seawater into hydrogen and oxygen.
The head of the research team, Andrew Sweetman, an executive of the Scottish Association for Marine Science, had identified the phenomenon in 2013, but because it was the first time it had been observed, further research and observations were needed to confirm the finding. Sweetman returned to lead a study that confirmed the existence of dark oxygen.
As soon as this news became known, some mining companies presented plans to mine these nodules, with marine scientists expressing fears that this could disrupt oxygen production at these depths and harm any marine life that depends on the oxygen produced there.
The plan
Sweetman and his research team are back and, as they announced, have begun the effort to organize expeditions to the ocean floor to identify and understand the phenomenon.
The research team’s plan is to work in locations where the seabed is deeper than 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), using remotely operated underwater equipment.
Some of these experiments, in collaboration with NASA scientists, will aim to understand whether the same process could allow microscopic life to thrive under oceans found on other planets and moons in our solar system. “If there is oxygen, there could be microbial life that exploits it,” the British scientist estimates.