If a beforehand unknown supply of oxygen has all the time been lurking in Earth’s depths, it will characterize a outstanding revelation that might name into query long-held assumptions concerning the origins of life on our planet.
But the deep-sea mining trade — which is eager to extract treasured metals from these potato-sized polymetallic nodules — and a few researchers have expressed doubts concerning the declare.
So British marine ecologist Andrew Sweetman, who led the 2024 analysis that exposed the potential existence of darkish oxygen, is planning a brand new underwater expedition within the coming months.
At a press convention on Tuesday, Sweetman and his crew unveiled two new landers able to diving to a depth of 11 kilometres (seven miles) with the intention of discovering out how the nodules might be creating oxygen.
Unlike earlier missions, these landers can have sensors particularly designed to “measure seafloor respiration”, Sweetman defined.
They can face up to 1,200 instances the strain on Earth’s floor and extra resemble house exploration gear, a press release mentioned.
The landers will probably be launched from a analysis ship within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, an enormous area between Hawaii and Mexico.
Mining firms have plans to start out harvesting the nodules, which comprise useful metals utilized in electrical automotive batteries and different tech.
The scientists consider that the nodules give off sufficient electrical cost to separate seawater into hydrogen and oxygen, a course of often called electrolysis.
Underwater gold rush?
Sweetman additionally used the press convention to push again towards criticism of his 2024 research.
Some researchers have recommended that the oxygen was not coming from the nodules, however as an alternative had been simply air bubbles trapped within the measuring devices.
“We’ve used these instruments over the last 20 years and every time we’ve deployed them, we’ve never had bubbles,” Sweetman mentioned, including that the crew carried out assessments to rule out such a chance.
The debate comes as firms and nations battle over proposed guidelines regulating the brand new and probably environmentally harmful deep-sea mining trade.
Sweetman’s 2024 research was partly funded by a Canadian deep-sea mining agency, The Metals Company, which has since sharply criticised his analysis.
“If commercial mining goes ahead then there will be quite widespread impacts,” Sweetman mentioned, including that “these nodules are home to a variety of diverse fauna”.
But the scientist emphasised it’s “not our intention” to search out one thing to cease deep-sea mining.
He as an alternative needs to collect as a lot info as potential to “minimise the impacts as much as possible” if mining does go forward.
Matthias Haeckel, a biogeochemist at Germany’s GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, instructed AFP that his personal analysis did “not show any hint towards oxygen production” from the nodules.
But he mentioned Sweetman will “join our cruise at the end of this year, where we plan to compare our methods”.
For the brand new analysis funded by the Japanese Nippon Foundation, Sweetman and his crew plan to spend May on a analysis ship within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
“We’ll be able to confirm dark oxygen production within 24 to 48 hours after the landers come up,” he mentioned.
The world will most likely not know the outcomes till the ship returns in June — and additional experiments again on dry land may take months, Sweetman added.
Originally printed on France24