Deep-sea metals may be source of oxygen for life on ocean floor

New research suggests that polymetallic nodules on the deep-sea floor may produce oxygen, a conclusion that could have enormous consequences for mining companies. That’s because a team of international scientists found that the prized nodules produce oxygen — and may be responsible for enriching this dark, remote ecosystem with one of life’s most important elements. The company noted it was “currently preparing a peer-reviewed paper as rebuttal.” Bo Barker Jørgensen, a microbiologist at Denmark’s Aarhus University — who was not involved with the research or on TMC’s payroll — said the work elicited more questions than it did answers. He said he did not “think this discovery is important for our understanding of the ocean in general or for deep-sea mining” and described the research as a “novel and very puzzling process for which the mechanism is still not clear.” The study’s authors pushed back on the critiques, stating they too had been puzzled by their findings — but they’d been rigorous in eliminating every other possible scenario. “Following the publication of this paper, I have been approached by other researchers with similar data sets also showing evidence of dark oxygen production that they discarded thinking equipment was faulty,” he said.