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THE VAST majority of Earth’s oxygen is made as a by-product of photosynthesis, the usage of gentle to transform water and carbon dioxide into sugars. Any oxygen present in areas the place photosynthesis is inconceivable—such because the abyssal seafloor, a pitch-black realm as much as 6,000 metres deep—was considered floor gasoline on the transfer.
In a paper revealed in Nature Geoscience, nonetheless, Andrew Sweetman on the Scottish Affiliation for Marine Science and his colleagues reveal that some is, actually, “darkish oxygen” created with out daylight.
The primary indications that this gasoline was being produced on the abyssal seafloor got here in 2013, when researchers seen that oxygen ranges have been increased close to polymetallic nodules, lumpy agglomerations of metallic and minerals discovered throughout the ocean ground. The researchers imagine that the electrical subject these nodules exert may strip electrons from the water, liberating oxygen from its molecular jail.
This discovery implies the likelihood that cardio (oxygen-dependent) life arose earlier than photosynthesis developed. That’s controversial. However darkish oxygen may actually assist cardio microbes that survive within the deep at the moment—in addition to the bigger organisms that eat them. ■
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