Ancient lava rubble on the seafloor can store huge amounts of carbon dioxide like a giant "sponge," a new study finds.
Cores collected from beneath the southern Atlantic Ocean show that this rubble — which formed through volcanic activity and spread across the ocean floor over millions of years — stores between two and 40 times as much carbon dioxide as the upper crust at the bottom of the ocean, according to research published Nov. 24 in the journal Nature Geoscience. The findings may help scientists better understand how Earth's climate changed in the past.
