In the summer of 2024, an international team of scientists reported the presence of dark oxygen along the ocean floor and theorized that polymetallic nodules may have created this gas via seawater ...

Dense populations of polymetallic nodules are scattered along the sea floor - up to 100 per square meter. These were retrieved and taken ashore where oxygen concentration values were calculated.

Dark oxygen provides a previously unknown source of oxygen in the deep ocean, produced through electrochemical reactions involving polymetallic nodules. This process occurs in complete darkness ...