A deep-sea experiment on carbon dioxide storage in oceanic crust

• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: CDRmare Research Mission 2022
• Subjects: Mid-Atlantic Ridge; Iceland
• Online Access: https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/57378/; https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/57378/1/CDRmare21_en_AIMS3_factsheet_221121.pdf; https://doi.org/10.3289/CDRmare.21

Factsheet: On Iceland, water enriched with carbon dioxide has been injected into the upper ocean crust since 2014 – and successfully. The carbon dioxide mineralises within a short time and is firmly bound for millions of years. However, since ocean crust only rises above sea level in a few places on Earth, researchers currently investigate the option of injecting carbon dioxide into ocean regions where huge areas of suitable basalt crust lie at medium to great water depths. One possible advantage: In the deep sea subsurface, the carbon dioxide would either be stable as a liquid or dissolve in the seawater circulating in the rock. Due to the high pressure, both the liquid carbon dioxide and the carbon dioxide-water mixture would be heavier than seawater, making leakage from the underground unlikely. But would carbon dioxide storage in the deep sea subsurface be technically feasible and ultimately also economically viable? The research mission CDRmare provides answers – with the help of the world's first deep-sea research experiment on carbon dioxide storage on cooled flanks of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.