Well! Well!
Another scientific myth bites the dust. But never believe anything which feels compelled to use the word “dark”.
Scientists who recently discovered that metal lumps on the dark seabed make oxygen, have announced plans to study the deepest parts of Earth’s oceans in order to understand the strange phenomenon. Their mission could “change the way we look at the possibility of life on other planets too,” the researchers say. The initial discovery confounded marine scientists. It was previously accepted that oxygen could only be produced in sunlight by plants – in a process called photosynthesis.
But I am extremely sceptical of all “dark” things. Dark energy and dark matter are fudge factors and were never even claimed to be real things. Now, even the need for the fudge factor is vanishing. I suspect dark oxygen may also turn out to be just another example of junk science.
Evidence of dark oxygen production at the abyssal seafloor
Abstract
Deep-seafloor organisms consume oxygen, which can be measured by in situ benthic chamber experiments. Here we report such experiments at the polymetallic nodule-covered abyssal seafloor in the Pacific Ocean in which oxygen increased over two days to more than three times the background concentration, which from ex situ incubations we attribute to the polymetallic nodules. Given high voltage potentials (up to 0.95 V) on nodule surfaces, we hypothesize that seawater electrolysis may contribute to this dark oxygen production.
Of course there are many who claim this is a nonsense discovery. If photosynthesis is not the only way of producing oxygen and it can actually be produced in the depths of the ocean, then microbial life is not just possible but likely on the deep ocean floor. That could allow fanatic environmentalists (like the ones who caused the LA fires) to disturb the potential mining of metals (rare metals especially).
The initial discovery triggered a global scientific row – there was criticism of the findings from some scientists and from deep sea mining companies that plan to harvest the precious metals in the seabed nodules. If oxygen is produced at these extreme depths, in total darkness, that calls into question what life could survive and thrive on the seafloor, and what impact mining activities could have on that marine life. That means that seabed mining companies and environmental organisations – some of which claimed that the findings provided evidence that seafloor mining plans should be halted – will be watching this new investigation closely.
I find the criticisms of dark oxygen much more credible than the discovery paper by Sweetman.
This review examines the findings and methodologies presented in Sweetman et al. (2024) (hereafter referred to as ‘the paper’). The paper presents findings contrasting those of all previous comparable work and has stirred international debate pertaining to deep-sea minerals. We identify significant issues in data collection, validation, and interpretation including unvalidated data collection methods, the omission of crucial observations relevant for electrolysis processes, and unsupported voltage measurements which undermine the study’s conclusions. These issues, coupled with unfounded hypotheses about early Earth oxygen production, call into question the authors’ interpretation of the observations and warrant re-examining the validity of this work.
Dark oxygen sounds more like junk science and funding hype than any real discovery.
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