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Mystery oxygen source discovered on the sea floor — bewildering scientists (www.nature.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (2 children)

If this is coming from metals in these rocks forming electrochmical cells, they should've corroded away long time ago. Maybe there's some unknown process that recovers metallic elements back from salts? Maybe some bacteria? Even if, then why? It costs a lot of energy to do this.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Usually putting together metal and water you get metal-oxide and hydrogen gas.
m + H~2~O → mO + H~2~

What they discover is a unusual zone where they have both oxygen (dissolved) and metal. So, i guess they have the reverse process :
m~x~O~y~ + energy → (x)m + (y/2)O~2~

They should measure electrical field intensity in the water near the sea floor to evaluate electrical current going through the sea floor from the ocean.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I have zero knowledge related to this but wild speculation, could the core be leaking it into the mantle and up? Iirc its iron nickel and oxygen