News
To find out what kinds of microbes live in the nooks and crannies of the ocean crust, researchers dropped sterilized rocks into plugged drill holes. The biofilms that grew on the rocks were somewhat…
In conditions simulating early Earth’s magma ocean, iron performs an unusual chemical trick that could explain how Earth’s surface first became habitable and how the mantle accumulated so much carbon…
Once thought to be hard to find, methane that forms in the absence of life may be incredibly widespread on Earth and elsewhere in the solar system. It exists in microscopic bubbles that form from…
The Deep Carbon Observatory was well represented at Goldschmidt 2019, which took place from 18–23 August at the Centre Convencions Internacional in Barcelona, Spain.
Results from the first ever analysis of helium isotopes from fluids trapped in superdeep diamonds support the existence of a reservoir of ancient helium that has existed in Earth’s interior since its…
A Wikipedia writing assignment is a great opportunity for instructors to teach science communication skills on a world stage. In this kind of assignment, students create or improve Wikipedia articles…
Earlier this year, DCO researchers traveled to the Juína municipality in Brazil, an area that has been supplying ultra-deep diamonds to science for more than 20 years. They collected many of these…
Sixty-five new and existing Deep Carbon Observatory members took part in the ‘Carbon Down Under’ workshop, held at the University of Sydney on 24 and 25 July 2019.
A team of researchers examined pieces of limestone crust picked up and erupted from Merapi volcano in Indonesia. They discovered that the limestone rapidly transformed, losing much of its carbon in…
A new review article discusses the role of subseafloor microbes in driving global biogeochemical cycles. The authors propose a new explanation for why microbes fail to consume all the organic matter…
A study of volcanic hydrothermal sites worldwide suggests that hydrocarbons at some of these locations can appear to form in the absence of life, but actually overwhelmingly originate as organic…