At https://www.edition.cnn.com/2025/01/17/science/dark-oxygen-research/index.html … or https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-024-01480-8 … metallic rocks on the ocean bed are apparently producing oxygen. Where no sunlight can penetrate. Early research showed that potato sized nodules rich in metals, 1300 feet below the surface, released an electrical discharge.This was splitting sea water into oxygen and hydrogen via electrolysis.
Scottish professor, Andrew Sweetman, a marine scientist, led a project to investigate the production of ‘dark oxygen’ – using rigs equipped with sensors. Further research is to be funded by the Japanese ‘Nippon Foundation‘ – as the region around is earmarked for sea mining of rare metals contained within rock nodules. The initial discovery has therefore led to more research on the subject of electrolysis and dark oxygen. Or oxygen that is produced in darkness.
What does it mean? A more nuanced idea of what is going on is required. Oxygen, it is thought, is hard to produce with the continuous energy that comes from sunlight. However, a variety of scientists have encountered oxygen molecules in remote, light deprived, locations. The article goes on to describe a US discovery of dark oxygen, a few years ago. It would seem that dark oxygen is a much wider phenomenon than consensus science would allow. At the moment, the dominant view is that oxygen must be added to the environment by trees and plants – otherwsie it would disappear. Looks like this idea might be wrong.
Radiolysis, the splitting of waer molecules through radioactivity, is one possible way to create oxygen, it would seem. Deep sea mining companies want to mine for cobalt, nickel, copper, lithium and manganese, for use in green technology. One may also wonder what the Great Oxygen Event was all about. Was the oxygen that loaded the atmosphere produced deep within the earth?