Dark oxygen is produced on the seafloor by a process other than photosynthesis. A new study published in Nature Geoscience in July 2024 suggests it's unclear what causes dark oxygen, but a ...

It could impact marine life stretching from the tiniest bottom dwellers to apex predators like sharks. Read more at ...

Chugging quietly away in the dark depths of Earth's ocean floors, a spontaneous chemical reaction is unobtrusively creating ...

Rare metals on deep sea and ocean floors miles below the surface produce "dark oxygen," and mining these minerals could cause potentially harmful changes to the marine ecosystem, according to new ...

What makes The Metals Company (TMC), a little-known company that isn't even making any money, a threat to the ocean, ...

Sunlight-photosynthesizing organisms like plants and algae have long been believed to be the Earth's original producers of oxygen. But now, researchers have found evidence of a natural O2 factory ...

Dark oxygen refers to oxygen produced at extreme ocean depths without the involvement of photosynthesis. This process occurs on the deep ocean floor, where light cannot penetrate.

But the recent discovery of what researchers call “dark oxygen” may upend conventional notions of how the critical element can be created–and what that might mean for the origins of life.

Oxygen is a product of photosynthesis. Plants and plankton use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to create sugars and oxygen. That’s what makes the discovery of dark oxygen at the bottom of ...

Scientists on the US West Coast say they discovered three previously unknown species of deep-sea spider that could have a rare diet fueled by a common greenhouse gas.

Trace metals such as iron or zinc that are stored in deep-sea sediments are lost forever to phytoplankton on the ocean surface. This is what geochemists believed for a long time about the cycle of ...

In July 2024, the team finally published their findings in Nature Geoscience, calling the phenomenon dark oxygen.It’s unclear what’s causing it — Sweetman is preparing to investigate further next year ...