Скачать или смотреть Nodules: Deep-Sea Life Giver or Key to Our Energy Future?

On July 22, 2024, a team of researchers released a shocking discovery: deep-sea rock concentrations appeared to be producing oxygen in the blackness of the ocean’s abyss.

The two of us were in the middle of filming a documentary about these potato-sized undersea oddities—known as polymetallic nodules—and suddenly they were making global headlines. The researchers dubbed their finding “dark oxygen.”

But what grabbed us as journalists was how—within days of publication—the research ignited debate among dozens of diplomats then convening in Kingston, Jamaica, to decide the fate of those rocks.
Many researchers hope their work reaches policymakers, but it’s rare to see such an immediate effect.

Shortly after Nature Geoscience published the “dark oxygen” study, delegates from Costa Rica and Panama began citing it as a reason not to rush negotiations. According to a United Nations treaty that has been ratified or acceded to by 170 countries and regions (but not the U.S.), companies preparing to mine can’t extract nodules from international waters without agreement among those signatories on how that should be done. “Dark oxygen” became a rally call for prudence before opening up the high seas to deep-sea mining.

“Dark oxygen” steered a film we were already making into an entirely new direction. We had been following a separate group of researchers who had found the world’s oldest deep-sea test site, more than 50 years after mining. As one of us (Fieseler) first reported for the Post and Courierlast year, they made a remarkable observation among the field of nodules there.

That discovery, however, had a much different fate.

What unfolded for us was a tale about the power of research in extreme environments. What grabs the public’s attention? What drives policy? Is it all just timing and luck?

The “dark oxygen” study has come under fire over the past year. Researchers at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and at two companies—The Metals Company and Adepth—have separately posted scientific rebuttals in preprint papers. Nature Geoscience, the journal that published the research, has so far defended it, as have its authors.

A spokesperson for Nature Geoscience told one of us (Fieseler) via email that “concerns have been raised with us about this paper and we have been looking into them carefully following an established process, which is not yet complete.”

Meanwhile the decision to mine international waters is still being decided. This month delegates returned to the negotiating table in Jamaica. We traveled there this week to watch. But unlike last year, when many signs pointed toward a speedy decision and “inevitable” deep-sea mining operations, the pace has slowed. Acceleration has given way to rising precaution.