Iron dust is the rarest nutrient for most marine life. It can be washed down rivers or blown out to sea and it can also float up from the sea floor.

This new discovery now connects life at the surface to events occurring at extreme depths and pressures. These two worlds were long assumed to have little interaction. Organic compounds capture some iron spewed by hydrothermal vents and this allows it to be carried away in seawater. Iron trapped in this way does not rust.

Known qualities about iron makes scientists expect that this iron should have oxidized and rusted. The fact that it doesn’t was very surprising to the research team.