Authors: Andrew K. Sweetman, Alycia J. Smith, Danielle S. W. de Jonge, Tobias Hahn, Peter Schroedl, Michael Silverstein, Claire Andrade, R. Lawrence Edwards, Alastair J. M. Lough, Clare Woulds, William B. Homoky, Andrea Koschinsky, Sebastian Fuchs, Thomas Kuhn, Franz Geiger， and Jeffrey J. Marlow Journal: Nature Geoscience Deep-seafloor organisms consume oxygen, which can be measured by in situ benthic chamber experiments. Here we report such experiments at the polymetallic nodule-covered abyssal seafloor in the Pacific Ocean in which oxygen increased over two days to more than three times the background concentration, which from ex situ incubations we attribute to the polymetallic nodules. Given high voltage potentials (up to 0.95 V) on nodule surfaces, we hypothesize that seawater electrolysis may contribute to this dark oxygen production. |
