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How do oceans in an O'Neill Cylinder replenish dissolved oxygen?

Worldbuilding Asked on November 7, 2021

I am concerned that the centrifugal force will draw out all the dissolved gases from the ocean in a colossal O’Neill Cylinder in the same way blood centrifuges do in lab. Fishes and most marine life would die from hypoxemia and laying gas pipes stretching thousands of miles may not be a cost effective solution.

First thing first, is this a baseless concern, and the effect would not be sufficient to harm the ecosystem, or would the threat come in another form which would be much more severe?

3 Answers

The issue here is similar to a large fish tank. The fish tank is basically still water and will eventually be deprived of oxygen throughout the tank. This is due to the surface conditions more than the pull of gravity. In small tanks, this is alleviated with small bubbles that forced from an air pump. In larger tanks, you will usually see some type of waterfall that drops into the water and drags new oxygen into the tank water with the plummeting water using a water pump. The speed this happens depends on surface area to depth ratio, wind, sea life, and atmospheric oxygen levels (and likely many others).

You could have waterfalls in parks for people where the now highly oxygenated water would flow into the sea or recycle the air by bubbling it through the water.

Answered by James on November 7, 2021

Centrifuges that separate blood spin at a high RPM simulating between 500 and 2000 times Earth gravity. So with your O'Neill Cylinders spinning at ~1G you will still have this problem (when it comes to important minerals settling), but WAY slower.

On Earth, collating of the Ocean is prevented by tidal forces caused by the sun and moon. These forces help keep water churning in a way that it both absorbs and distributes atmospheric oxygen and kicks up minerals for plankton to consume.

The issue with O'Neill Cylinders comes into play when they are tidally locked to thier star and not in orbit of a planet. In this case, there is no significant forces causing still bodies of water to churn and you would still get the hypoxia die off and mineral deprivation you are worrying about, just much slower than you would in a centrifuge, and for slightly different reasons. That said, this can easily be solved for through a variety of means including something as simple as using a staggered re-spin cycle

Answered by Nosajimiki on November 7, 2021

Yes you are being paranoid. Are you worried about gravity doing the same thing on Earth? The O'Neil cylinder shouldn't be spinning fast enough to produce a force any greater since it is just trying to simulate 1G after all.

Answered by DKNguyen on November 7, 2021

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