Evidence of dark oxygen production at the abyssal seafloor

[usonian]

Thats abyssal, not abysmal. I turned off autocorrect. Spelling errors are mine.

Open access paper at Nature Geoscience.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-024-01480-8

You can download the PDF there.


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.

There's comentary at The Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/22/dark-oxygen-in-depths-of-pacific-ocean-could-force-rethink-about-origins-of-life

More readable.