@mike_malaska@deepspace.social
2026-03-11 01:39 UTC
As particle rich calcite laden "snow" comes down from the upper ocean, there are little microbes riding on it. The authors did experiments that shows that those microbes are metabolizing, making locally high (at microbe scale) CO2 concentrations, little acidic waters, maybe some other chemical byproducts that help Ca solubility too.
That helps local dissolution which dissolves the calcite that can then LIGHTENS the particles so they fall slower.
Replies (1)
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@mike_malaska@deepspace.social 2026-03-11 01:41
The authors showed these wild non-intuitive effects that make sense when you tease it out. Slower sinking particles dissolve sorta slow. Medium speed sinking particles (10 meters a day drop) dissolve very fast Faster sinking particles dissolve slow again. There is definitely a Goldilocks effect going on. What drives it?