Every one of us know that the world has a carbon dioxide problem, and there are loads of suggestions on how to dealing it. Sequestration is a method, keeping off the gas out of the atmosphere through long-term storage. A great idea, if you can figure out where to put it. Lot of ideas has been proposed, like pumping it into old oil and gas fields or saline aquifers. At the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, researchers propose injecting CO2 into deep sea basalt formations, specifically a large expanse of the rock below 8,000 feet of the ocean on the Juan de Fuca plate in the Pacific Northwest.

Taro Takahashi, David S. Goldberg and Angela L. Slagle suggest in 'The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences' that these porous deposits got many advantages. One is that minerals in the rock could react with CO2, forming stable carbonates. Another is that the deposits are blanketed by 1,000 feet of sediments which could block leaks. And the area is near the coast, so CO2 could be piped straight from power plants to injection sites. The researchers estimate there is enough basalt to store more than 120 years' worth of industrial and power-plant emissions by the United States.