Deep Sea Mining Threatens Newly Discovered Dark Oxygen

Last month some very clever scientists published their findings on oxygen production on the seafloor. What is astonishing is that previously we've believed that free oxygen in the atmosphere and dissolved in the oceans had come almost exclusively from plants performing photosynthesis. But here at the lightless abysmal depths these scientists found levels of oxygen consistent with production of what they call "dark oxygen.

" The discovery is yet another example of that eternal verity that we don't know what we don't know. The findings—which…