The underground engine
The non-sinking ocean pump
The carbon factory inside us
YOUR GOAL
Master of The secret carbon keepers of the microbial world
007skaty Microbial Carbon Pump
Microbes lock it tight, Keep it suspended, Carbon never sinks!
007skaty Identified in the Sargasso Sea in 1990, these cells scavenge dissolved organic carbon to maintain the ocean's chemical
007skaty Glowing Prochlorococcus cells drift through deep ocean water lit by warm golden sunlight.
007skaty Pump nutrients to floating blooms to discover how plants capture carbon from the air.
Ocean carbon storage: The ocean's pool of refractory dissolved organic carbon holds about 624 gigatons of carbon, nearly matching the total carbon found in Earth's atmosphere.
A biological process in which marine microorganisms convert labile organic compounds into stable, long-term dissolved organic carbon. Nianzhi Jiao formally proposed this ocean carbon storage mechanism in a landmark 2010 scientific paper.
How many gigatons of carbon are stored in the ocean as refractory dissolved organic carbon?
What percentage of marine microbial cells are made up of the SAR11 bacterial group?
What resistant carbon compound is produced by marine microbes to store carbon for millennia?
In what year was the photosynthetic marine microbe Prochlorococcus first discovered?