
Dark Oxygen: a deep sea discovery
From SAMS Ocean Explorer by Scottish Association for Marine Science
February 21, 2025 · 43 min · Season 2 · Episode 6
About this episode
The episode discusses a groundbreaking discovery regarding oxygen production in the deep sea that challenges existing scientific beliefs.
A discovery in the dark depths of the Pacific Ocean has been challenging the scientific consensus of how oxygen is produced and has even called into question how life on Earth began. Photosynthetic organisms like plants and algae use energy from sunlight to create the planet’s oxygen. But new evidence published by Prof. Andrew Sweetman and collaborators, including his former PhD student Dr Danielle de Jonge, has shown how oxygen is also produced in complete darkness at the seafloor 4,000 metr...
Topics covered
- deep sea discovery
- oxygen production
- photosynthesis
- marine science
- life origins
Keywords
- dark oxygen
- deep sea
- Pacific Ocean
- photosynthetic organisms
- marine science
Mentioned in this episode
Places: Pacific Ocean
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