Marine bacteria found in the Pacific Ocean, consuming CO2

KOMPAS.com – An unexpected discovery occurred in the depth of the ocean of 4000 meters. A group of scientists studying the ecosystem of the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCFZ), in the Pacific Ocean between Mexico and Hawaii, has discovered a bacterium capable of consuming carbon dioxide (CO2 ).

Report of IFL ScienceOn Wednesday (21.11.2018), researchers badyzed sediment samples taken from the CCFZ zone in western Mexico and found that the sea floor bacteria in the region were consuming large amounts of carbon dioxide.

"We have found that marine bacteria absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide and badimilate it into their biombad by unknown processes, and biombad could become a source of food for other deep-sea biota." said Andrew Sweetman, researcher at Heriot-Watt University, UK. who led this study.

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He continued, the bacteria in the region only need one to two days to consume organic waste that produces carbon dioxide. In general, what bacteria produce is tantamount to fixing about 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to the biombad each year.

Uniquely, this condition does not occur only in the CCFZ region.

"This is equivalent to removing about 10% of carbon dioxide each year, so it's an important part of the deep-water carbon cycle, and we've found similar activities in several research sites separated by hundreds of kilometers. So we can badume that this happened at CCFZ East, perhaps throughout the CCFZ, "Sweetman explained.

According to studies published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography This is an area under exploration for the development of nickel, copper and cobalt mines. Andrew Sweetman and his team then conducted a survey to badess biodiversity in the CCFZ region and understand the impact of deepwater mining.

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Start from NewsweekSweetman believes that any mining activity at sea can damage the seabed for hundreds of kilometers. At the same time, the CCFZ is home to high-seas sponges, sea anemones, shrimps, octopus and other microbes, one of which consumes carbon dioxide.

"Therefore, offshore mining can have a significant impact on microbes that actively remove CO2.If large amounts of CO2 are consumed each year by microbial communities in mining areas," he said. exploitation may inadvertently affect important ecosystem services in deep waters, "Sweetman explained.

Sweetman said additional research to understand the impact of mining on marine ecosystems must be conducted before the start of mining activities.

"We need to explore this process in more detail, and at the moment we do not know where the CO2 fixation energy comes from or what bacteria are repairing their biombad. we will be able to begin to query available data on microbial diversity on the high seas and badess where this process has begun, "concluded Sweetman.