Deep-sea mining threatens newly discovered dark oxygen

• Scientists have discovered a previously unknown source of oxygen production on the sea floor, challenging the hypothesis that photosynthesis is the primary source of oxygen.
• This “dark oxygen” is believed to be produced by a process called seawater electrolysis, facilitated by minerals targeted for deep-sea mining.
• The discovery raises concerns about the potential negative impacts of deep-sea mining on this newfound source of oxygen and the wider ocean ecosystem.

Last month some very smart scientists published their findings on seafloor oxygen production. What’s amazing is that we previously thought that free oxygen in the atmosphere and dissolved in the oceans came almost exclusively from photosynthesising plants. But here, in the lightless abyssal depths, these scientists found oxygen levels consistent with the production of what they call “dark oxygen.” The discovery is yet another example of that eternal truth that we don’t know what we don’t know.

The discoveries – which were partly financed by deep-sea mining interests –they are now instantly attacked by the same interests. The reason can be found in the mechanism by which oxygen is produced. Scientists believe that it is the very minerals that deep-sea miners want to extract from the ocean floor that facilitate what they call “seawater electrolysis.” Electrolysis is the process of releasing the hydrogen and oxygen atoms that make up water from each other using an electric current. The hypothesis is that electrolysis occurs spontaneously as a result of the presence of copper and manganese nodules that lie on the seabed.

The implications are profound if it is found to be a significant contributor to free oxygen on the planet. No one knows for sure, and the mechanism for producing oxygen has yet to be verified by other researchers. And this verification is exactly what scientists say needs to happen. But that, of course, could delay any deep mining until the implications of this mining for dark oxygen are clarified.

I have written about deep mining before to discuss a bacterium that lives in the same area surveyed by the scientists mentioned above. The Clarion-Clipperon Zone is a vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, located between Hawaii and Mexico, and teeming with life, including a bacterium that may be responsible for sequestering 10 percent of all the carbon dioxide absorbed by the oceans. (The oceans together absorb approx a quarter of all carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere—causing absorption ocean acidification thereby creating other problems.)

In a 2017 track I asked what species are we sure we can survive without. We don’t know if we can survive without this bacteria. We don’t know if we can survive long term without all the species supported by dark oxygen. And of course there are all those species that we destroy through chemical poisoning, habitat loss, and other means that may or may not be essential to our survival. Some of these species, no doubt, have never been cataloged and studied. We don’t know they exist and we don’t know we’re losing them.

Not knowing what we don’t know wouldn’t be so important if humans hadn’t become the dominant geological force on the plant. Our blunders through the landscape and now the seascape endanger us and all the creatures around us. We continue to live as if the scale of our activities is too small to affect the functioning of the biosphere, even though it is obvious that this notion has long since ceased to be true. The discovery of dark oxygen is yet another reminder that we will continue to be surprised by the depths of our ignorance.

By Kurt Cobb via Resource Insights

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