Scientists have discovered metallic minerals on the ocean floor that generate “dark oxygen.”
This recent research potentially disproves past assumptions that Earth’s oxygen is solely produced by photosynthetic organisms.
The discovery, made 13,000 feet beneath the ocean’s surface, indicates that oxygen can be produced even in the complete darkness of Earth’s marine layers. These new findings may challenge our current theories about the origins of aerobic life on Earth.
Andrew Sweetman from the Scottish Association for Marine Science stated that oxygen is essential for the emergence of life on Earth, and it has been understood that Earth’s oxygen supply originated from photosynthetic organisms. However, this research effectively disproves that hypothesis.