UK deep-sea landers to crack the mystery of dark oxygen
Two world‑first deep‑sea landers—Alisa and Kaia—will be deployed in the Pacific’s Clarion-Clipperton Zone to investigate how oxygen forms in complete darkness, testing whether manganese nodules interact with saltwater to produce electricity or if another electrochemical/biochemical process is at work, with an accompanying lander to measure oxygen flux; the three‑year project, backed by UNESCO as a UN Ocean Decade initiative, seeks to uncover the origins of dark oxygen and its implications for life in the deep ocean.