Scientists find a massive hidden CO2 sponge beneath the ocean floor

Scientists discovered that underwater lava rubble acts as a massive natural carbon storage system by analyzing 60-million-year-old rock samples from deep beneath the South Atlantic Ocean floor. The porous volcanic debris, formed when underwater mountains erode, traps CO2 through chemical reactions with seawater that create calcium carbonate minerals over millions of years. These breccia deposits store between two and 40 times more CO2 than previously studied ocean rocks, revealing a previously unrecognized mechanism for Earth's long-term carbon management.