The main thing we know about the deep sea is that we don’t know enough about the deep sea.
Just last year, researchers reported that they found over 5,000 species on the seabed in a part of the Pacific. Most of the species were new to science, which isn’t surprising given that over 90 percent of the ocean’s lifeforms were estimated to be undescribed as of a decade ago.
More recently, scientists made the groundbreaking discovery that metal-bearing nodules on the seafloor could be a source of ‘dark oxygen’. Their research indicated that nodules carry high electric charges that may be spurring oxygen production in the depths via seawater electrolysis, meaning the splitting of seawater into oxygen and hydrogen. With sunlight usually required to produce oxygen, which is an element that enabled complex lifeforms to evolve, the findings reopen the question of how life began on Earth, according to the study’s lead author.
Simply put, the deep sea is the stuff that mind-blowing mysteries are made of. This is central to why a push for the onset of commercial deep-sea mining, whereby companies would scour the seabed for nodules and other compounds containing rare-earth elements, is facing significant opposition.
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Image via Michele Roux / Ocean Image Bank
