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Oceanography

Carbon cycle at depth

The existence of a microbial community in the ocean crust has long been hypothesized. Isotopic evidence indicates that a deep biosphere of microbes both scrubs oceanic fluids of organic matter and produces new, yet old, organic carbon in situ.

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Figure 1: Hydrological flow of water in the oceanic crustal aquifer.

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Edwards, K. Carbon cycle at depth. Nature Geosci 4, 9–11 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1028

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