New research shows that disproportionately large amounts of carbon accumulate at the bottom of deep-sea trenches.
New research shows that disproportionately large amounts of carbon accumulate at the bottom of deep-sea trenches. The trenches may thus play an important role for deep-sea storage of organic material - and thus for the atmospheric Co2 balance.
The Earth's deep-sea trenches are some of the least explored places on Earth - as they are very difficult to access, are pitch black and the pressure is extremely high. Collecting samples and making reliable measurements of the processes that regulate the turnover of organic material in the deep is therefore difficult.
In recent years, however, researchers from the Danish Center for Hadal Research (HADAL) at University of Southern Denmark have carried out a number of expeditions to deep-sea trenches.
They have developed and applied sophisticated underwater robots, and they have demonstrated in several published studies that the steep deep-sea trenches accumulate various material including organic carbon that ends up at the bottom of the trenches.
Read more at University of Southern Denmark
