I’ve literally seen this only once before - a US national lab director (Berkeley) doing expensive research ties to a high-end particle accelerator (ie VERY few other researchers can find or even access the tools). Presenting his results, he, of course, cited many others’ work, but maybe every -10 minutes he’d say, “work done the Shank team” (ie his own group), or … “work done by us” or “my team showed…” It was actually quite humorous yet sobering - the guy was literally THE authority on the topic...yet it just sounded like a funny mix of researcher-speak and hubris, which weirdly, it was not.
I very much appreciate you making a follow up video on this topic - and also mentioning different hypotheses for different processes and not just jumping to your personal favorite version. Thank you.
Properly speaking it's a theory, not a 'discovery'. Further research is required to establish confidence in the results of this study as well as to better quantify the phenomenon on large scales, if it proves valid.
Your joyful excitement is wonderful to behold. Dr. Ben Miles' channel reported the mining company claims there is no oxygen production and it's all down to contamination. They'll be publishing a rebuttal shortly. Naturally, I'm skeptical of their self-serving findings. I value your expert opinion and hope you continue to keep us informed!
The way I see it metal ions that are in a high oxidation state are being reduced to a lower oxidation state and some of the surplus oxidation potential is making molecular oxygen. But the total oxidation overall is decreasing. So oxygen is being produced at the ocean floor but near the surface more oxygen is being used up.
Im still confused how even that could explain this. That metal ions that cluster over 100’s of 1000’s of years can contribute metabolically significant oxygen levels. Also I love you man, you have had such an enormous influence on me personally.
@@geekswithfeet9137 I'm with you on this except that I have an abstract concept of it. It's more than just catalytic reaction, iiuc, it's an electrocatalytic reaction where a difference in electrical charge across a catalyst increases the reaction. There are also photocatalysts where light increases a catalytic reaction -- they are used in air purifiers to generate hyroxyl radicals to oxidize VOCs w/o also oxidizing the phospholids of our mucus membrane cells. :)
I didn't expect our questions about Dark Oxygen to be answered in a video so soon! I'm so happy! Thank you, Geo Girl. This clears up a whole lotta questions I had last time - and the questions I read in the comments, too. It is really interesting how those nodules seem to gather(?) or be found in deep little underwater "deserts" without much plant or animal life around. (That I can see, anyway. Maybe there's some microscopic life floating around there?) Actually...is there? Does any algae or something similar grow on the outside of those nodules? Are the nodules slimy? Or do they truly gather in deserted areas of the seafloor? But if deep sea life tends to require little or no oxygen, then those nodules may be acting like a toxic barrier to anaerobic lifeforms. Also, that thallium work looks pretty interesting. And that graph illustrating the substrate structure was so clear. Nice work!
Love to read the thoughtful comments by people with different experience/expertise from metalurgy, chemistry, biology, oceanography, engineering, physics, etc. Shows how beneficial the internet can be for integrating knowledge from diverse perspectives. Also interesting to see people reveal their agendas by their comments.
Really like the deep dive (abyssal dive?) into the subject. I had first thought the chemical reactions in the precipitation process resulted in the free electrons but the bimetallic current flow makes much more sense. Ship builders use the same concept by attaching zinc or aluminum plates to steel ship hulls to concentrate all the corrosive reactions on the metal of the plate and not the ship hull. It seems likely to have extraterrestrial significance too with all the oceans we hypothesize on other planets and moons
These Mn nodules were mined in East Tennessee from the clays regoliths over Cambrian carbonates and shales. Used mostly for making steel in the WWII era.
I was considering the same thing....diagenetic nodules would also likely form in hydric soils and sediments on land, and it sounds like you are familiar with at least one example of this! I am currently studying Fe/Mn/Al aquatic systems high in the mountains where acid mine drainage occurs, and we are finding very small, colloid versions of these in the peat sediments. It occurs to me that diagenetic processes could accrete these over time into larger, more significant nodules, especially considering the ubiquity of hydrothermal systems and deep cycling groundwater in the region.
A little off topic from the video, but I just found your channel because of your last video, and I have to say, it's always awesome to see how excited science communicators get when you get to their favorite topics. Yea, they're excited for science in general, it's awesome, but when it's in your field or you just have a particular interest in it, the extra happiness is always so contagious and definitely makes my day better! Thank you for everything you do for science communication, and I hope we hear more about these nodules/this process soon!
I am glad that you are using the correct term, 'electrolysis.' I saw battery in a few places, but as always your levels of detail, clarity, and scholarship are unparalleled. Looking forward to future shows.
Cool stuff. One of the questions was about origin of life. I just saw another video talking about discovery of a potential for a new type of life. They found cells that incorporated a specific bacteria. These could (in geologic time) lead to new types of life. They gave 2 earlier examples, one was mitochondria (if I recall the right name) to generate energy within the cell. The other was the incorporation of chloroplasts that lead to plant life. "Produce" nodules: maybe not nodules, but if "we" could set up "water mining" at volcanic hydro-thermal vents. Suck up mineral rich hot water being released, precipitate minerals out. Then the trick is finding vents releasing the right minerals in "commercial concentrations", assuming the pumping and precipitation technology exists ...
I would add a sixth question: Are we seeing something that isn't there? OK, I get it. A transfer of energy via metallic ions. Does the cold sea-water under pressure effect the process? Has the O2 content of sea-water adjacent to the nodules been analyzed for isotope ratios? Forgive me if covered in previous video.
This brings up some interesting pondering regarding banded iron formation creation. Because the layering of iron is dependent on redox conditions and given the age of most BIF perhaps this ionic generation of O2 offers another puzzle to unravel. Just goes to show that nothing is ever fully known in science (especially in geology) and further study, as always 😁 , can lead to new discoveries.
Great video but I do have something to add: we have evidence of photosynthesis which dates back to 3.5 Ga but there is little evidence that it was oxygenic and instead likely used H2S as the electron donor. Also, much of the claims of oxygenic photosynthesis between 3.2 and 2.8 Ga is based on the redox stratification of metals that would have been in the oceans. However, a possibility that's ignored is that phototrophic organisms protoxidized the metals themselves to reduce carbon dioxide. Oxygenic phototrophs don't photo oxidize water directly but instead photoxidize a manganese (III) to a manganese (IV) in the oxygen evolving complex (EOC) and the manganese (III) is regenerated by oxidising a water molecule so it's likely that the progenitor of oxygenic phototrophy used reduced metals in the water column instead.
When you said that the kicker was that "manganese nodules require oxygen to form," at about 24:15, one of those descending trombone sounds like "womp, womp, womp, waah" sounded in my head.
I don't know if there is an answer to this.....the nodules are sitting on the sea floor, with much more seawater circulating around the part not resting on the sea bottom.....so my initial assumption would be that there is more deposition on the surface with more exposure to seawater.... (Also, your delight at this unexpected discovery is contagious - I wish I had teachers like you when I was in High School....)
Thank you for the wonderful clarifications and "filling in the blanks" in my understanding of this phenomena. This is very helpful for me to see electrical phenomena in less constrained ideas as "generators" and "batteries". This reminds me a bit of how a heart isn't just a muscle responding to signals from the brain, it's also it's own electrical signal-producing organ!
A better question than "where does the electricity come from" is "where does the energy come from?" Electrolysis is not energetically favorable; that's why hydrogen burns in oxygen and releases heat. If the energy comes from the formation of the nodules either by creating an electrical potential, or by reducing the metals... well, the nodules grow really slowly so the amount of oxygen would be super tiny.
Excellent presentation and information. I usually don't forward too many long videos, but this is certainty and exception. I found this an immediate and necessary topic to understand. Especially since deep sea mining wants to remove these nodules for their profitable metals. That's a dangerous thing to do. We must really understand the purpose of these nodules.
Thank you for making this video, this answered so many questions for me! I feel like the whole "generating nodules in a lab" question was a little weirdly phrased, since the more plausible version of this would be to investigate whether there's a way to mine these metals directly from ocean water, that could by some technology accumulate these metals in the coastal oceans substantially faster than natural processes. It seems to me that *if* this is possible it would be a much more "sustainable" way of getting these metals than just harvesting the nodules until they run out.
Maybe something involving high pressures... The only issue is those timescales are required to allow the nodules to grow that large. Mother nature's already passed the torch to us. We could probably design a much better catalyst inspired by them! Y
Big 'agree' here that these polymetallic nodules have very little to do with abiogenesis or the origins of complexity. I'd hazard a guess think it's the moon's tidal forces is what did it for us. Shallow seas are basically always where we find the highest biodiversity, and there's good reason for it. Water is a universal solvent, and waves crashing against rocks dissolves heavy materials, and the ocean's the churn against the atmosphere dissolves light materials. This highly diversified chemical soup, in the presence of an external high energy source like the solar gradient, was probably necessary for the evolution of complex life. Even if life started near thermal vents (another good source of a dense, highly varied chemical soup and temperature energy gradient), there likely just wasn't enough vents to ever fuel complex life. Another big thanks to Theia, eh?
Maybe, but dilution has been the big problem in scenarios for the combination of chemicals into self-sustaining systems. Some people think that the process started among chemicals stuck onto certain rock or clay surfaces.
You continue to do amazing work. A very niche yet wide variety of knowledge. This subject continues to intrigue me and I've found alot more specific communication here than other places. Great work!
i wish i could like this video more than once! your enthusiasm and passion for this topic is heartwarming and contagious, thank you for all that you do, and @ youtube algorithm gods, thank you for blessing me with the recommendation for your initial dark oxygen video lol in any case lol another great video, keep up the good work!
Before the GOE, could volcanic eruptions have interacted with clouds to produce acid rain that dissolves minerals and washes them into the ocean to be an input for nodule production?
Thanks for the video, you do great work. I can really see place for a bacteria to concentrate the energy using a lipid bilayer to concentrate the charge like a capacitor with a rotor-stator enzyme using the charge to make ATP and releasing the O2 as a byproduct. Since bacteria utilize all known redox couples it is hard to think that this resource would not be utilized by multiple species.
Thank you for the video Rachel! Truly thought provoking. It is lovely that a recent paper you contributed to is relevant to this topic. You rock! Pun intended. 🙂 I will show myself out.
Geo Girl struggling in suffocating constantly upcoming chuckles for excitement! We viewers share her emotion, as implications are shaping visibly. Yet, much remaining to do. Among other questions, one thing noticeable is the shape of nodule in a thumbnail not beautifully spherical, but looking like a raspberry. What does that irregularity in shape stand for? Another thing, shown in the video, but not mentioned, is about effects of depth where nodules are formed. Is that due to availability of metals? Does tremendous water pressure have anything to do with it? Curious, as well as ironic, is this. The more secrets revealed, the more questions emerge! Good luck, & we're looking forward to following ups!
There was an interesting interview with a rep from one the mining companies. He looked like he hadn't slept much in weeks, even kind of stumbling around an answer "People are just over-reacting, it's nothing, nothing" Which made me think he was worried and it was something!
New to your channel and just wanted to say your last two videos were great! I liked your challenge around synthesizing these nodules. You're right that these are in water in trace amounts and that we'd need cathodes made of the target metals we're trying to remove. But something I thought would be interesting is that we do often have a lot of concentrated seawater from a by product of desalinization. I found a paper on scientists trying this by targeting calcium and magnesium, and hopefully the nodule discoveries will drive more research into this area
A pretty deep dive with some pretty technical Geology which is challenging for the non-Geologist (I'm a retired engineer), but very interesting nonetheless. I really enjoy learning new things even in my old age. It is a good thing we learned about the O2 production before large scale seafloor mining started. Mining has the potential not only to disturb the local area, but disrupt the whole benthic ecosystem.
chasing down the fractions... how many digits can we stick after the decimal points. This always takes time and effort :) Excellent explainer, Geo Girl! I love how you're willing to acknowledge the nuances and your own limits & biases. The self-awareness of a true scientist :) Now, my question is: Can the nodules be dated somehow? I don't know enough about nuclear physics to know if something like carbon-14 dating is possible on these beasties.
Yep! Not necessarily by C14 dating, but by other isotopic dating for sure. If not the nodules themselves, the surrounding strata can help us constrain the date of ancient nodules as well as any fossils preserved. :)
Great vid. Prior to the oxygenation of the seas and atmosphere the seas had higher concentrations of iron and other metals that form oxides so the nodule formation could have been aided or impeded by conditions on the sea floor then,
I love your videos, by now to me you're just a part of the world. I can't even see the world without GeoGirl. I'm a bit of a wildcard but I still think it's a reasonable question ,, could these polymetallic nodules themselves be a life form? I understand their formation is not terribly different than cave formations but you have to wonder if some cave formations might not also be life forms, but the amount of energy that might "move and store" in a polymetallic nodule is more and in that case could it be that it has an experience? ((I mean people have before wondered if crystals have an experience as they form, but again the nodules are quite a different beast in the way they form charges across their layers and how cells are the same ))
Haa, pretty cool. Really cool actually. The alternating layers, anodic, cathodic, prolly make an excellent catalyst.. damnit you just said it lol, at any rate .. they're like a mineral analog of a proto biological cell. The hydroxides are the key, they suck in the water and the metallic layers split it. It's a really weird mechanism like a van-der-wallian effect Yes you can definitely replicate them via chemical vapor deposition. Certainly by iron carbonyl upon manganese hydroxide substrate.. Nevertheless it's a new effect, the center is so dry it sucks the water in, but it's ripped apart via the stress. It's a new effect and you can name a battery after that new effect.🎉 Good job. I'm sure 20 years from now this battery will be chemically deposited on peoples cars. Hope you have a fancy last name so you can name the effect
The continuous availability of additional metal ions from seawater makes this sound more like a fuel cell than a battery (at least compared to a rechargeable battery). Of course in a fuel cell you also need a steady quantity of something for the ions in seawater to react with, not just a catalyst to make the reaction faster and more likely, although having both helps.
I think the comments asking if we could replicate this process were asking more about how this could be applied to our current electrolysis processes, creating more efficient catalysts that use the relatively more common metals found in these nodules rather than the palladium we use now. These nodules are not the only sources of these metals, so replicating the process might be accomplished with metals mined in the more traditional manner. Once we find out what's going on at the molecular level we can start working on ways to construct artificial versions of these catalysis sites.
Thank you for your scientific contributions!!! Science is THE most important thing humanity has. Without it, we'd be living in the past without engines, phones, electric, plastics, eyeglasses, medicine, and anything else you can pretty much think of that enhances our lives.
first read the news a few days ago, a week or so maybe? and it keeps popping up, so i finally decided it was time to click on a video about them... no better place to start than at @GEO GIRL 😻.
When I saw this come up on various sources I was attracted to the thought that this slow low quantity oxygen production might have helped the existing anoxic life forms over the hump so to speak. Certainly they could not have survived having the current amount of oxygen dumped on them, but if these nodules created a slow trickle of O2 then it would have been much much easier for the anaerobic organisms to make the smaller leap. Given maybe 50 million years of this process generating dark oxygen on the sea floors and the continental margins would be easy for the generations to slowly evolve the enzymes to protect themselves from oxygen. Sound reasonable (you can tell I am a geologist, give me enough time and I can do almost anything)? I am sorta sliding towards the idea of this oxygen source being more fundamental than you are. A trace seems more possible for the life forms and the cold and dark might both help the organisms make the transition.
A fascinating part of the story of life on Earth. By the way, the GOE wasn't just one giant leap, but a series of events you alluded to. For example the oceans could have been red at one point as the available oxygen was taken up by iron to produce iron oxide - rust. Mars is red because of a similar process.
It would have been good to explain explicitly why the electrolysis is producing oxygen but not chlorine. My best understanding from the presentation is that the oxygen, in the form of hydroxide groups, is physically set up for electrolysis when the metal hydroxides adsorb onto the nodule surface, and this physical arrangement is the catalytic effect.
5:00 so they precipitate by… precipitating? I don’t understand how are the little pieces (grains? molecules?) are “attracted” and “glued” to the core and then to the metalic layers. Are you saying that if a molecular Iron in the water meets an Iron nodule, it will get glued there somehow and form the layers? How? I can understand how drops of water kinda stick together due to surface tension because of cohesive forces. Is it similar in this case? Thanks for the great content!
Another follow up question, is it possible that the iron deposits from the great oxidation event also functioned like these nodules in generating oxygen? Would have a bigger effect then these patches of nodules, just speculating tho, idk...
Thank you PhD lady! Geology isn't really my thing but the deep ocean is. I've been interested in the geothermal vents since the 80s. Deep vents have the UV and radiation protection put have other problems for first life but so do tidal pools. Possible mud geysers and mineral pools similar to Yellowstone, with a porous rock structure and eh clay it could provide enough shelter from UV and cosmic ray damage. Combine writing and a bit of autism and you're always reading abut something that interests you.
At 23:20, is "glutathine" a typo of "glutathione", or is it some obscure chemical? I still don't understand how it's supposed to work. What's the overall reaction, that's energetically favorable? Splitting water doesn't just need a catalyst. It needs an energy source.
I'm still confused: where does the free energy comes from? For atmospheric oxygen, this is the sun, but aside from geothermal nodule which have geothermal energy, shouldn't the hydrogenic metal adsorption build-up occur only if its a more-stable configuration then free ions, and so they shouldn't interact with water? Is there another source of high-free-energy ions? Are there ion concentration gradients in different parts of the sea and the nodules are made between them? Is there a natural "weather" of solutes which changes over the year and the nodules "retain" the energy? Is it some mineral being "consumed" somewhere? Change in temperature?
I've previously commented (but maybe not on your channel) that in salty water, electrolysis would generate Cl2 before O2. As O2 production apparently is being measured, there should either be some catalyst that facilitats splitting of water over oxidizing Cl-, or oxygen is released from other compounds, like oxides or hydroxides, in other words, a chemical reaction, not electrolysis. There could of course be a mix of both, and the oxygen producing reaction contributing to the potential difference they measured, but wasn't that only measure in the lab, and not in situ? So there might not be much of a potential generated at the sea floor.
Thanks for this detailed summary! I am a bit surprised by the lack of data regarding the HER reaction since they only measured the O2 production (unless I missed it), not the H2, which should be concomittent unless another species is being reduced. Also, the electrochemical part remains elusive? I guess the paper is more a "communication paper" than a thorough study. Anyway, really interesting discoveries
@@garyhundt H+ is for sure a side-product of the OER reaction in acidic media (half-cell reaction). Any redox reaction requires 2 half-cell reactions with one species being oxidised (here H2O -> O2) and another being reduced (here idk, most of the time HER: H2O -> H2). Within the same nodule, I guess we could expect to have oxidation sites (Mn-rich here) and reduction sites. I am just curious about the chemistry involved here.
This was such a cool video. I've been wondering about these nodules for a few years now. And hey, you are a beautiful young gal and it's fun to watch your videos. I'm a picture framer so of course I see the picture behind you! Maybe see you on patreon soon.
Howdy Rachel. I guess I’ll have to switch pancakes breakfast to Saturday to maintain pancakes and GeoGirl. The impression I’m getting now is the requirement for deep-time. Are oxides being sourced at the vents? The initial life being anaerobic, did aerobic life morph from them or created from scratch? As in did anaerobic life gain tolerance to O2 slowly or is one O2 molecule lethal? See, now I know even more questions with only a little bit more information. This is why I like science, and this is one of the most intriguing geoscience questions. Enjoy discovering answers!
Great video! Lots of ramifications here. I am wondering if we have examples of these nodules in the geological record that we might exploit for minerals, or did the deep basinal sediments get subsumed in subduction zones and never get preserved. The other thing that occurs to me is whether any of the mineral precipitation is bio-mediated?. Did bacteria have any part to play in the precipitation process? Do oxic bacteria consume the oxygen as fast as it is formed? Just been reading up on Birnessite, which was first discovered in Scotland! It seems that bio-mediated Birnessite formation is more efficient. This from wikipedia "Its precipitation from the oxidation of Mn(II) in oxygenated aqueous solutions is kinetically hindered and slow on mineral surfaces. Biological Mn(II) oxidation is generally fast relative to abiotic Mn(II) oxidation processes, and for this reason the majority of natural birnessites is believed to be produced by microorganisms, especially bacteria, but also fungi.[13]"
If dark oxygen production is driven by the splitting of water, you would expect to be able to see a pH change at the cathodes and anodes even if the pH of the overall solution is unchanged. Should be very easy to test with an appropriate indicator. The only issue is that you have to go the bottom of the Pacific to get these.
also water moving around the geodes may charge them as it is friction. Also constant tempreture changes in the water converses to thre rock alternating their electrical states.
I got a sudden desire for popcorn and Mike & Ikes like a movie was about to start when I saw the thumbnail and title. I wonder if it's because of the nodules... *eats popcorn and presses play*
Thank you. I wonder if these nodules have anything to do with / may be markers of extinction events, themselves often associated with 'black shales'..?
9:56 But catalysts only work if the reaction is thermodynamically favorable. Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen is not favorable under the vast majority of circumstances, so I don't understand how that would work.
"Cite your own professional work" award achieved!
I’ve literally seen this only once before - a US national lab director (Berkeley) doing expensive research ties to a high-end particle accelerator (ie VERY few other researchers can find or even access the tools). Presenting his results, he, of course, cited many others’ work, but maybe every -10 minutes he’d say, “work done the Shank team” (ie his own group), or … “work done by us” or “my team showed…”
It was actually quite humorous yet sobering - the guy was literally THE authority on the topic...yet it just sounded like a funny mix of researcher-speak and hubris, which weirdly, it was not.
The glow of pride when she said that was well earned. Good job, Geo Girl!
@@baomao7243 I've seen Dr Becky do it in one of her videos. 😋😁
Cold fusion via cavitation?
Could not agree more! Father in law, Geography department head, taught his post doc students to cite own work where appropriate!
I very much appreciate you making a follow up video on this topic - and also mentioning different hypotheses for different processes and not just jumping to your personal favorite version. Thank you.
Congrats in being a part of this big discovery!
Properly speaking it's a theory, not a 'discovery'. Further research is required to establish confidence in the results of this study as well as to better quantify the phenomenon on large scales, if it proves valid.
Your joyful excitement is wonderful to behold. Dr. Ben Miles' channel reported the mining company claims there is no oxygen production and it's all down to contamination. They'll be publishing a rebuttal shortly. Naturally, I'm skeptical of their self-serving findings. I value your expert opinion and hope you continue to keep us informed!
Criticism of scientific papers is essential to the scientific process. Scientists (yes, even the ones with pure hearts) can be very wrong.
@@JP-lz3vkAgreed. But corporations have a history of publishing studies that support their interests that later prove misleading or false.
@@toastyburger
The oil industry being the "poster boy" for that particular weasel ploy.
@@JP-lz3vk Companies publishing propaganda is not part of the scientific process. This is common sense, I'm afraid.
@@sehrgut42 You don't know whether its propaganda or not until you test it. It has nothing to do with who funded it. Look up the "Genetic Fallacy"
The way I see it metal ions that are in a high oxidation state are being reduced to a lower oxidation state and some of the surplus oxidation potential is making molecular oxygen. But the total oxidation overall is decreasing. So oxygen is being produced at the ocean floor but near the surface more oxygen is being used up.
That wouldn't be a catalytic mechanism, then, as suggested at 9:56.
Im still confused how even that could explain this. That metal ions that cluster over 100’s of 1000’s of years can contribute metabolically significant oxygen levels.
Also I love you man, you have had such an enormous influence on me personally.
@@geekswithfeet9137 I'm with you on this except that I have an abstract concept of it. It's more than just catalytic reaction, iiuc, it's an electrocatalytic reaction where a difference in electrical charge across a catalyst increases the reaction. There are also photocatalysts where light increases a catalytic reaction -- they are used in air purifiers to generate hyroxyl radicals to oxidize VOCs w/o also oxidizing the phospholids of our mucus membrane cells. :)
I didn't expect our questions about Dark Oxygen to be answered in a video so soon! I'm so happy! Thank you, Geo Girl.
This clears up a whole lotta questions I had last time - and the questions I read in the comments, too.
It is really interesting how those nodules seem to gather(?) or be found in deep little underwater "deserts" without much plant or animal life around. (That I can see, anyway. Maybe there's some microscopic life floating around there?)
Actually...is there?
Does any algae or something similar grow on the outside of those nodules? Are the nodules slimy? Or do they truly gather in deserted areas of the seafloor?
But if deep sea life tends to require little or no oxygen, then those nodules may be acting like a toxic barrier to anaerobic lifeforms.
Also, that thallium work looks pretty interesting. And that graph illustrating the substrate structure was so clear. Nice work!
Love to read the thoughtful comments by people with different experience/expertise from metalurgy, chemistry, biology, oceanography, engineering, physics, etc. Shows how beneficial the internet can be for integrating knowledge from diverse perspectives. Also interesting to see people reveal their agendas by their comments.
Really like the deep dive (abyssal dive?) into the subject. I had first thought the chemical reactions in the precipitation process resulted in the free electrons but the bimetallic current flow makes much more sense. Ship builders use the same concept by attaching zinc or aluminum plates to steel ship hulls to concentrate all the corrosive reactions on the metal of the plate and not the ship hull. It seems likely to have extraterrestrial significance too with all the oceans we hypothesize on other planets and moons
These Mn nodules were mined in East Tennessee from the clays regoliths over Cambrian carbonates and shales. Used mostly for making steel in the WWII era.
I was considering the same thing....diagenetic nodules would also likely form in hydric soils and sediments on land, and it sounds like you are familiar with at least one example of this! I am currently studying Fe/Mn/Al aquatic systems high in the mountains where acid mine drainage occurs, and we are finding very small, colloid versions of these in the peat sediments. It occurs to me that diagenetic processes could accrete these over time into larger, more significant nodules, especially considering the ubiquity of hydrothermal systems and deep cycling groundwater in the region.
Great follow up. Excellent detail and clarification.
Thanks for the clarity of your thinking, especially how the nodules are unlikely to predate the GOE... I think you're brain is working really well!
In fact, I'm wondering whether that's about when they started forming.
Fascinating research thanks for exploring!
A little off topic from the video, but I just found your channel because of your last video, and I have to say, it's always awesome to see how excited science communicators get when you get to their favorite topics. Yea, they're excited for science in general, it's awesome, but when it's in your field or you just have a particular interest in it, the extra happiness is always so contagious and definitely makes my day better! Thank you for everything you do for science communication, and I hope we hear more about these nodules/this process soon!
I agree, as opposed to general science communicators (no shade intended, but I too find her genuine excitement and interest contagious)
I am glad that you are using the correct term, 'electrolysis.' I saw battery in a few places, but as always your levels of detail, clarity, and scholarship are unparalleled.
Looking forward to future shows.
Cool stuff.
One of the questions was about origin of life. I just saw another video talking about discovery of a potential for a new type of life. They found cells that incorporated a specific bacteria. These could (in geologic time) lead to new types of life. They gave 2 earlier examples, one was mitochondria (if I recall the right name) to generate energy within the cell. The other was the incorporation of chloroplasts that lead to plant life.
"Produce" nodules: maybe not nodules, but if "we" could set up "water mining" at volcanic hydro-thermal vents. Suck up mineral rich hot water being released, precipitate minerals out. Then the trick is finding vents releasing the right minerals in "commercial concentrations", assuming the pumping and precipitation technology exists ...
I would add a sixth question: Are we seeing something that isn't there?
OK, I get it. A transfer of energy via metallic ions.
Does the cold sea-water under pressure effect the process?
Has the O2 content of sea-water adjacent to the nodules been analyzed for isotope ratios?
Forgive me if covered in previous video.
This brings up some interesting pondering regarding banded iron formation creation. Because the layering of iron is dependent on redox conditions and given the age of most BIF perhaps this ionic generation of O2 offers another puzzle to unravel. Just goes to show that nothing is ever fully known in science (especially in geology) and further study, as always 😁 , can lead to new discoveries.
Great video but I do have something to add: we have evidence of photosynthesis which dates back to 3.5 Ga but there is little evidence that it was oxygenic and instead likely used H2S as the electron donor. Also, much of the claims of oxygenic photosynthesis between 3.2 and 2.8 Ga is based on the redox stratification of metals that would have been in the oceans. However, a possibility that's ignored is that phototrophic organisms protoxidized the metals themselves to reduce carbon dioxide. Oxygenic phototrophs don't photo oxidize water directly but instead photoxidize a manganese (III) to a manganese (IV) in the oxygen evolving complex (EOC) and the manganese (III) is regenerated by oxidising a water molecule so it's likely that the progenitor of oxygenic phototrophy used reduced metals in the water column instead.
Thanks!
Thank you so much! 😁
As usual, excellent presentation! Great work.
When you said that the kicker was that "manganese nodules require oxygen to form," at about 24:15, one of those descending trombone sounds like "womp, womp, womp, waah" sounded in my head.
I don't know if there is an answer to this.....the nodules are sitting on the sea floor, with much more seawater circulating around the part not resting on the sea bottom.....so my initial assumption would be that there is more deposition on the surface with more exposure to seawater.... (Also, your delight at this unexpected discovery is contagious - I wish I had teachers like you when I was in High School....)
Thank you, Rachel. As always, well informed, summarized, and stated!
Well
2nd video I'm seeing in your site, loved it, congratulations
Cool! I'm so happy you and Shawn are doing a show together. I watch you both and am looking forward to it. Yea!
Thank you for the wonderful clarifications and "filling in the blanks" in my understanding of this phenomena. This is very helpful for me to see electrical phenomena in less constrained ideas as "generators" and "batteries". This reminds me a bit of how a heart isn't just a muscle responding to signals from the brain, it's also it's own electrical signal-producing organ!
A better question than "where does the electricity come from" is "where does the energy come from?" Electrolysis is not energetically favorable; that's why hydrogen burns in oxygen and releases heat. If the energy comes from the formation of the nodules either by creating an electrical potential, or by reducing the metals... well, the nodules grow really slowly so the amount of oxygen would be super tiny.
kinetic; water.
Excellent presentation and information. I usually don't forward too many long videos, but this is certainty and exception. I found this an immediate and necessary topic to understand. Especially since deep sea mining wants to remove these nodules for their profitable metals. That's a dangerous thing to do. We must really understand the purpose of these nodules.
The Q and A is more interesting than the actual story!
Thank you for making this video, this answered so many questions for me! I feel like the whole "generating nodules in a lab" question was a little weirdly phrased, since the more plausible version of this would be to investigate whether there's a way to mine these metals directly from ocean water, that could by some technology accumulate these metals in the coastal oceans substantially faster than natural processes. It seems to me that *if* this is possible it would be a much more "sustainable" way of getting these metals than just harvesting the nodules until they run out.
or turn it around so the metal mined on land is turned into nodules to prevent anerobic ocean dieoff and smell.
Maybe something involving high pressures... The only issue is those timescales are required to allow the nodules to grow that large. Mother nature's already passed the torch to us. We could probably design a much better catalyst inspired by them!
Y
Half hour follow up update video!?!? Awesome 🤩
Nice work.
Big 'agree' here that these polymetallic nodules have very little to do with abiogenesis or the origins of complexity.
I'd hazard a guess think it's the moon's tidal forces is what did it for us.
Shallow seas are basically always where we find the highest biodiversity, and there's good reason for it.
Water is a universal solvent, and waves crashing against rocks dissolves heavy materials, and the ocean's the churn against the atmosphere dissolves light materials. This highly diversified chemical soup, in the presence of an external high energy source like the solar gradient, was probably necessary for the evolution of complex life.
Even if life started near thermal vents (another good source of a dense, highly varied chemical soup and temperature energy gradient), there likely just wasn't enough vents to ever fuel complex life.
Another big thanks to Theia, eh?
Energy gradients at every scale so key
Maybe, but dilution has been the big problem in scenarios for the combination of chemicals into self-sustaining systems. Some people think that the process started among chemicals stuck onto certain rock or clay surfaces.
What a cool video ! And good job with that citation
You continue to do amazing work. A very niche yet wide variety of knowledge. This subject continues to intrigue me and I've found alot more specific communication here than other places. Great work!
i wish i could like this video more than once! your enthusiasm and passion for this topic is heartwarming and contagious, thank you for all that you do, and @ youtube algorithm gods, thank you for blessing me with the recommendation for your initial dark oxygen video lol
in any case lol another great video, keep up the good work!
Thanks for the response video. :)
Absolutely Amazing , Rachel!!!
Awesome video! This is a pretty major reworking of our understanding of oxygen!
Before the GOE, could volcanic eruptions have interacted with clouds to produce acid rain that dissolves minerals and washes them into the ocean to be an input for nodule production?
Thanks for the video, you do great work. I can really see place for a bacteria to concentrate the energy using a lipid bilayer to concentrate the charge like a capacitor with a rotor-stator enzyme using the charge to make ATP and releasing the O2 as a byproduct. Since bacteria utilize all known redox couples it is hard to think that this resource would not be utilized by multiple species.
Great topic. I've wondered about these very things since hearing about dark oxygen.
WOW! awesome!!! gj
Hydrogen production uses iodine and sulfur, which could easily be abundant in the ocean.
Electrolysis requires no other outside input to produce H2. Could other actors help, perhaps but not necessary.
Thank you for the video Rachel! Truly thought provoking. It is lovely that a recent paper you contributed to is relevant to this topic. You rock! Pun intended. 🙂 I will show myself out.
Geo Girl struggling in suffocating constantly upcoming chuckles for excitement! We viewers share her emotion, as implications are shaping visibly. Yet, much remaining to do. Among other questions, one thing noticeable is the shape of nodule in a thumbnail not beautifully spherical, but looking like a raspberry. What does that irregularity in shape stand for? Another thing, shown in the video, but not mentioned, is about effects of depth where nodules are formed. Is that due to availability of metals? Does tremendous water pressure have anything to do with it? Curious, as well as ironic, is this. The more secrets revealed, the more questions emerge! Good luck, & we're looking forward to following ups!
There was an interesting interview with a rep from one the mining companies. He looked like he hadn't slept much in weeks, even kind of stumbling around an answer "People are just over-reacting, it's nothing, nothing" Which made me think he was worried and it was something!
How am I supposed to see how amazing this is when you take my breath away?
True, Rachel looks a little more charmingly disarming this week. Je ne sais quoi.
thank you for covering the "infinite battery" question!
Wait a minute, what a about a "geology news" series? From volcanos to published papers, it could be a nice niche for youtube.
New to your channel and just wanted to say your last two videos were great! I liked your challenge around synthesizing these nodules. You're right that these are in water in trace amounts and that we'd need cathodes made of the target metals we're trying to remove. But something I thought would be interesting is that we do often have a lot of concentrated seawater from a by product of desalinization. I found a paper on scientists trying this by targeting calcium and magnesium, and hopefully the nodule discoveries will drive more research into this area
A pretty deep dive with some pretty technical Geology which is challenging for the non-Geologist (I'm a retired engineer), but very interesting nonetheless. I really enjoy learning new things even in my old age. It is a good thing we learned about the O2 production before large scale seafloor mining started. Mining has the potential not only to disturb the local area, but disrupt the whole benthic ecosystem.
chasing down the fractions... how many digits can we stick after the decimal points. This always takes time and effort :) Excellent explainer, Geo Girl! I love how you're willing to acknowledge the nuances and your own limits & biases. The self-awareness of a true scientist :)
Now, my question is: Can the nodules be dated somehow? I don't know enough about nuclear physics to know if something like carbon-14 dating is possible on these beasties.
Yep! Not necessarily by C14 dating, but by other isotopic dating for sure. If not the nodules themselves, the surrounding strata can help us constrain the date of ancient nodules as well as any fossils preserved. :)
Great vid. Prior to the oxygenation of the seas and atmosphere the seas had higher concentrations of iron and other metals that form oxides so the nodule formation could have been aided or impeded by conditions on the sea floor then,
I love your videos, by now to me you're just a part of the world. I can't even see the world without GeoGirl. I'm a bit of a wildcard but I still think it's a reasonable question ,, could these polymetallic nodules themselves be a life form? I understand their formation is not terribly different than cave formations but you have to wonder if some cave formations might not also be life forms, but the amount of energy that might "move and store" in a polymetallic nodule is more and in that case could it be that it has an experience? ((I mean people have before wondered if crystals have an experience as they form, but again the nodules are quite a different beast in the way they form charges across their layers and how cells are the same ))
That’s an excellent insight. I never thought of this process as catalytic!
On the other hand, how a catalyst can drive an energetically unfavorable reaction remains to be explained.
I’m so happy we have you to help us understand this!!! Our very own geology PhD. Thanks!!
This is what I wanted to see; I love debate and discussion leading to meaningful novel discovery.
Could the nodule formation process be used to clean metallic contamination from water?
Haa, pretty cool. Really cool actually. The alternating layers, anodic, cathodic, prolly make an excellent catalyst.. damnit you just said it lol, at any rate .. they're like a mineral analog of a proto biological cell. The hydroxides are the key, they suck in the water and the metallic layers split it. It's a really weird mechanism like a van-der-wallian effect
Yes you can definitely replicate them via chemical vapor deposition. Certainly by iron carbonyl upon manganese hydroxide substrate..
Nevertheless it's a new effect, the center is so dry it sucks the water in, but it's ripped apart via the stress. It's a new effect and you can name a battery after that new effect.🎉 Good job.
I'm sure 20 years from now this battery will be chemically deposited on peoples cars. Hope you have a fancy last name so you can name the effect
I was just watching your video of last week and then research on the topic more and just after 1 hour I found this video of your 😂
Haha oh good, I am glad the timing worked out! ;)
What came first the chicken or the nodule-egg?
Brilliant. Any mining of the sea floor must be immediately curtailed.
Perhaps nodules/mineral rich water could be better created from the brine discharge at desalination plants?
Thank you for such a sober analysis!
your channel is awesome! great explanations
i think it is cool that it is related to your paper. i like that sort of thing
The continuous availability of additional metal ions from seawater makes this sound more like a fuel cell than a battery (at least compared to a rechargeable battery). Of course in a fuel cell you also need a steady quantity of something for the ions in seawater to react with, not just a catalyst to make the reaction faster and more likely, although having both helps.
At the risk of sounding flippant, one could say "electricity rocks". My two minipoopers say hi! to Hope again.
Very clear explanation. Thank you!
I think the comments asking if we could replicate this process were asking more about how this could be applied to our current electrolysis processes, creating more efficient catalysts that use the relatively more common metals found in these nodules rather than the palladium we use now. These nodules are not the only sources of these metals, so replicating the process might be accomplished with metals mined in the more traditional manner. Once we find out what's going on at the molecular level we can start working on ways to construct artificial versions of these catalysis sites.
Thank you for your scientific contributions!!! Science is THE most important thing humanity has. Without it, we'd be living in the past without engines, phones, electric, plastics, eyeglasses, medicine, and anything else you can pretty much think of that enhances our lives.
first read the news a few days ago, a week or so maybe? and it keeps popping up, so i finally decided it was time to click on a video about them... no better place to start than at @GEO GIRL 😻.
Thermal couple mechanism, maybe? Maybe some piezoelectric involved? Fluctuations of pressure or temperature differences?
No significant pressure changes
@@dennisbrown5313But the reactions might be favored at higher pressures.
When I saw this come up on various sources I was attracted to the thought that this slow low quantity oxygen production might have helped the existing anoxic life forms over the hump so to speak. Certainly they could not have survived having the current amount of oxygen dumped on them, but if these nodules created a slow trickle of O2 then it would have been much much easier for the anaerobic organisms to make the smaller leap. Given maybe 50 million years of this process generating dark oxygen on the sea floors and the continental margins would be easy for the generations to slowly evolve the enzymes to protect themselves from oxygen. Sound reasonable (you can tell I am a geologist, give me enough time and I can do almost anything)? I am sorta sliding towards the idea of this oxygen source being more fundamental than you are. A trace seems more possible for the life forms and the cold and dark might both help the organisms make the transition.
A fascinating part of the story of life on Earth. By the way, the GOE wasn't just one giant leap, but a series of events you alluded to. For example the oceans could have been red at one point as the available oxygen was taken up by iron to produce iron oxide - rust. Mars is red because of a similar process.
Thank you for the fantastic content. 👏👏
It would have been good to explain explicitly why the electrolysis is producing oxygen but not chlorine. My best understanding from the presentation is that the oxygen, in the form of hydroxide groups, is physically set up for electrolysis when the metal hydroxides adsorb onto the nodule surface, and this physical arrangement is the catalytic effect.
What's the water temperature around the metal nodules? Is it warm or cold?
5:00 so they precipitate by… precipitating? I don’t understand how are the little pieces (grains? molecules?) are “attracted” and “glued” to the core and then to the metalic layers. Are you saying that if a molecular Iron in the water meets an Iron nodule, it will get glued there somehow and form the layers? How? I can understand how drops of water kinda stick together due to surface tension because of cohesive forces. Is it similar in this case? Thanks for the great content!
Try some simple crystal growing experiments in your kitchen, or some electroplating experiments, to gain some intuition.
@@garyhundt thanks that’s a good suggestion!
Another follow up question, is it possible that the iron deposits from the great oxidation event also functioned like these nodules in generating oxygen?
Would have a bigger effect then these patches of nodules, just speculating tho, idk...
The opposite is believed to have happen - that is why the iron is iron oxide in ores.
Thank you PhD lady! Geology isn't really my thing but the deep ocean is. I've been interested in the geothermal vents since the 80s. Deep vents have the UV and radiation protection put have other problems for first life but so do tidal pools. Possible mud geysers and mineral pools similar to Yellowstone, with a porous rock structure and eh clay it could provide enough shelter from UV and cosmic ray damage.
Combine writing and a bit of autism and you're always reading abut something that interests you.
Ty
At 23:20, is "glutathine" a typo of "glutathione", or is it some obscure chemical?
I still don't understand how it's supposed to work. What's the overall reaction, that's energetically favorable? Splitting water doesn't just need a catalyst. It needs an energy source.
I'm still confused: where does the free energy comes from?
For atmospheric oxygen, this is the sun, but aside from geothermal nodule which have geothermal energy, shouldn't the hydrogenic metal adsorption build-up occur only if its a more-stable configuration then free ions, and so they shouldn't interact with water?
Is there another source of high-free-energy ions? Are there ion concentration gradients in different parts of the sea and the nodules are made between them? Is there a natural "weather" of solutes which changes over the year and the nodules "retain" the energy? Is it some mineral being "consumed" somewhere? Change in temperature?
I've previously commented (but maybe not on your channel) that in salty water, electrolysis would generate Cl2 before O2.
As O2 production apparently is being measured, there should either be some catalyst that facilitats splitting of water over oxidizing Cl-, or oxygen is released from other compounds, like oxides or hydroxides, in other words, a chemical reaction, not electrolysis.
There could of course be a mix of both, and the oxygen producing reaction contributing to the potential difference they measured, but wasn't that only measure in the lab, and not in situ? So there might not be much of a potential generated at the sea floor.
Fantastic Video!!!! Absolut fantastic.
What part of the nodule serves as the anode? - and the cathode? Did I miss this in part of your video?
8:40 congrats for your own work! Keep goikg! ^^
Hello Rachel 🚵,
This is a fascinating topic. Thank you for today's presentation. You are awesome!
Thanks for this detailed summary!
I am a bit surprised by the lack of data regarding the HER reaction since they only measured the O2 production (unless I missed it), not the H2, which should be concomittent unless another species is being reduced. Also, the electrochemical part remains elusive? I guess the paper is more a "communication paper" than a thorough study.
Anyway, really interesting discoveries
Could be producing H+ ions rather than H2.
@@garyhundt H+ is for sure a side-product of the OER reaction in acidic media (half-cell reaction). Any redox reaction requires 2 half-cell reactions with one species being oxidised (here H2O -> O2) and another being reduced (here idk, most of the time HER: H2O -> H2). Within the same nodule, I guess we could expect to have oxidation sites (Mn-rich here) and reduction sites.
I am just curious about the chemistry involved here.
This was such a cool video. I've been wondering about these nodules for a few years now. And hey, you are a beautiful young gal and it's fun to watch your videos. I'm a picture framer so of course I see the picture behind you! Maybe see you on patreon soon.
Howdy Rachel. I guess I’ll have to switch pancakes breakfast to Saturday to maintain pancakes and GeoGirl.
The impression I’m getting now is the requirement for deep-time. Are oxides being sourced at the vents?
The initial life being anaerobic, did aerobic life morph from them or created from scratch? As in did anaerobic life gain tolerance to O2 slowly or is one O2 molecule lethal?
See, now I know even more questions with only a little bit more information.
This is why I like science, and this is one of the most intriguing geoscience questions.
Enjoy discovering answers!
Great video! Lots of ramifications here. I am wondering if we have examples of these nodules in the geological record that we might exploit for minerals, or did the deep basinal sediments get subsumed in subduction zones and never get preserved.
The other thing that occurs to me is whether any of the mineral precipitation is bio-mediated?. Did bacteria have any part to play in the precipitation process? Do oxic bacteria consume the oxygen as fast as it is formed?
Just been reading up on Birnessite, which was first discovered in Scotland!
It seems that bio-mediated Birnessite formation is more efficient. This from wikipedia "Its precipitation from the oxidation of Mn(II) in oxygenated aqueous solutions is kinetically hindered and slow on mineral surfaces. Biological Mn(II) oxidation is generally fast relative to abiotic Mn(II) oxidation processes, and for this reason the majority of natural birnessites is believed to be produced by microorganisms, especially bacteria, but also fungi.[13]"
Can it be recreate exactly in a lab ? this is incredibly interesting thank you
great Dг geo girl thank you
If dark oxygen production is driven by the splitting of water, you would expect to be able to see a pH change at the cathodes and anodes even if the pH of the overall solution is unchanged. Should be very easy to test with an appropriate indicator. The only issue is that you have to go the bottom of the Pacific to get these.
also water moving around the geodes may charge them as it is friction. Also constant tempreture changes in the water converses to thre rock alternating their electrical states.
I got a sudden desire for popcorn and Mike & Ikes like a movie was about to start when I saw the thumbnail and title.
I wonder if it's because of the nodules... *eats popcorn and presses play*
Thank you.
I wonder if these nodules have anything to do with / may be markers of extinction events, themselves often associated with 'black shales'..?
9:56 But catalysts only work if the reaction is thermodynamically favorable. Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen is not favorable under the vast majority of circumstances, so I don't understand how that would work.
Which means there's a source of energy. Some sort of thermal gradient perhaps or energy from water circulation?