Analysis of the sediment in Belize’s Great Blue Hole shows a concerning trend. Blue holes, the name for collapsed limestone ...

The research that gave rise to the dark oxygen discovery was partly funded by a Canadian deep-sea mining business, The Metals Company, that wanted to assess the ecological impact of such exploration.

"It was quite disorienting in the dark and it was very slippery ... "I was afraid of looking back and seeing all the water ...

Environmentalists said the presence of dark oxygen showed just how little is known about life at these extreme depths, and supported their case that deep-sea mining posed unacceptable ecological ...