Conversation

“Scatterings of these nodules carpet vast areas of the ocean's bottom. They're natural deposits of rare-earth metals like cobalt, manganese, and nickel, all jumbled up in a polymetallic mix. We value these exact metals for their use in batteries, and it turns out that's exactly how the rocks may be spontaneously acting on the ocean floor.

The researchers found single polymetallic nodules produced voltages of up to 0.95 V. So when clustered together, like batteries in a series, they can easily reach the 1.5 V required to split oxygen from water in an electrolysis reaction.” (Source: NATURE
23 July 2024 By TESSA KOUMOUNDOUROS)

It seems that deep sea mining for these ‘nodules’ has caused unrecoverable ‘dead zones’ where not even bacteria can survive. There should be a UN Convention to ban deep sea mining. #environment #NaturalBatteries #deepseamining #darkOxygen

https://www.sciencealert.com/mysterious-dark-oxygen-discovered-at-bottom-of-ocean-stuns-scientists