A new study by Prof. Andrew Sweetman and coauthors published in Nature Geoscience (Evidence of dark oxygen production at the abyssal seafloor) has shown how oxygen is produced in the presence of ferromanganese nodules in complete darkness at the seafloor 4,000 meters below the ocean surface, where no light can penetrate. Andrea Koschinsky was involved in the investigation of the role that the mineralogy and redox chemistry of the nodules may play in the unique process in which arrays of nodules produce enough potential to split seawater into oxygen and hydrogen. This exciting discovery will have important implications for the way in which future deep-sea mining will develop, the question of where and how aerobic life on Earth has begun, and what potential these nodule “rock batteries” may have.
