A 2024 study that claimed to have discovered an entirely new source of oxygen in the deep sea — dubbed "dark oxygen" — was flawed, inconsistent with previous research, and "fundamentally at odds with thermodynamics," critics argue in a new opinion article.
Despite this pushback, the researchers behind the 2024 study recently announced that they will deploy robots to the seafloor between Mexico and Hawaii in May to confirm the findings and determine what's causing the phenomenon.
