Earth May Have Underground 'Ocean' Three Times That on Surface
Last edited Fri Jun 13, 2014, 09:52 AM - Edit history (1)
Source: The Guardian
Earth may have underground 'ocean' three times that on surface
Scientists say rock layer hundreds of miles down holds vast amount of water, opening up new theories on how planet formed
Melissa Davey
Thursday 12 June 2014 23.53 EDT
After decades of searching scientists have discovered that a vast reservoir of water, enough to fill the Earths oceans three times over, may be trapped hundreds of miles beneath the surface, potentially transforming our understanding of how the planet was formed.
The water is locked up in a mineral called ringwoodite about 660km (400 miles) beneath the crust of the Earth, researchers say. Geophysicist Steve Jacobsen from Northwestern University in the US co-authored the study published in the journal Science and said the discovery suggested Earths water may have come from within, driven to the surface by geological activity, rather than being deposited by icy comets hitting the forming planet as held by the prevailing theories.
Geological processes on the Earths surface, such as earthquakes or erupting volcanoes, are an expression of what is going on inside the Earth, out of our sight, Jacobsen said.
I think we are finally seeing evidence for a whole-Earth water cycle, which may help explain the vast amount of liquid water on the surface of our habitable planet. Scientists have been looking for this missing deep water for decades.
Jacobsen and his colleagues are the first to provide direct evidence that there may be water in an area of the Earths mantle known as the transition zone. They based their findings on a study of a vast underground region extending across most of the interior of the US.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/13/earth-may-have-underground-ocean-three-times-that-on-surface
heaven05
(18,124 posts)more water to poison and use for fracking.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)It's not really water til it gets up here. Ringwoodite, the mineral mentioned, can include hydroxide (OH) ions, and is stable at high pressures found deep in the crust. So there aren't actually 'oceans' down there, just lots of bound up oxygen and hydrogen. It's oceans 'worth' of hydrogen and oxygen down there, not actual H2O. So no lost Atlantis either
heaven05
(18,124 posts)SkyDaddy7
(6,045 posts)For the explanation...Still trying to understand why they say "water" because even before you mentioned there were no "oceans" I knew that but I don't understand why researchers are calling this "missing water" when it is simply Oxygen & Hydrogen but that is not water. If this Ringwoodite, the mineral mentioned just a sign that water once existed or would there be water if the mineral was to be brought to the surface somehow?
Forgive my ignorance...Thanks.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)pressure and temperature regimes. If I take a chunk of carbon, stable here at 1 atmosphere of pressure and room temperature, and put it under a ton of pressure and heat, I can change its structure to turn it into diamond. And this can happen quickly. Going in the other direction, from high to low pressures, that diamond will only degrade very slowly. If I put it in a mix with several other minerals and do the same thing, they'll shuffle themselves around to try and find the arrangement in which they're most stable, and swap out elements to form new minerals. In the crust, that means you wind up with a lot of olivine and spinel like minerals.
Bring them up to the surface, and they'll start interacting with various liquids and gases and be weathered - sometimes into new minerals, although in many cases simply mechanically changed, not chemically, into smaller pieces. Sandstone is mainly just a bunch of compacted smaller pieces of quartz. But throw iron up onto the surface, and it will oxidize over time.
I'm not familiar with ringwoodite structure specifically, but how easily you could break free that hydroxide depends upon how it's attached to the rest of the structure. (And now you've got me wondering if my 20 or so year old 'encyclopedia of mineralogy' even has ringwoodite listed in it...) At any rate, it's certainly possible that the water currently on the surface of the earth actually came from ringwoodite forced up to the surface via tectonic and volcanic processes, and all of those hydroxides chemically shifting at low temps and pressures into water. (the bonds in water are fairly weak - that's why you can do experiments in grade school where you use electricity to break water apart into oxygen and hydrogen.) If so, that puts forward a very intriguing view of the evolution of the planetary surface.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)was not an actual measurement, just a euphemism for a 'lot'.
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)I was also trying to wrap my head around it.
It is fascinating information.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)I haven't actually done anything geology-related since the end of the last millennium, so I hope I didn't mangle my attempt to present a simplified version of things too badly
I finished up the degree, then instantly moved into another field...
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)I'm an historian (so really, I wouldn't know if you mangled it). It sounded clear enough to me that I could make a passable attempt at explaining it to someone else, which is my criteria for a useful simplified explanation!
SkyDaddy7
(6,045 posts)You happen to be a Father then Happy Father's Day...If not, have good weekend!! And thanks again I really find that stuff fascinating...I don't fully understand all of it but I know enough for it to be interesting!
jwirr
(39,215 posts)various areas. And Old Faithful. Connected - who knows.
Bosonic
(3,746 posts)Android3.14
(5,402 posts)The research did not find water. In the lede of the article, note the word "may". We don't have any holes that reach 400 miles. What he has is a hypothesis and a piece of corroborating evidence based on seismometer data and lab experiments using rock under high pressure.
This has a long way to go before it reaches anything like a scientific theory.
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)"It's actually the confirmation that there is a very, very large amount of water that's trapped in a really distinct layer in the deep Earth," said Graham Pearson, lead study author and a geochemist at the University of Alberta in Canada. The findings were published today (March 12) in the journal Nature.
The worthless-looking diamond encloses a tiny piece of an olivine mineral called ringwoodite, and it's the first time the mineral has been found on Earth's surface in anything other than meteorites or laboratories. Ringwoodite only forms under extreme pressure, such as the crushing load about 320 miles (515 kilometers) deep in the mantle.
Exciting stuff - I studied in the U of A lab from 1991 - 1995.
tomm2thumbs
(13,297 posts)only better..
BootinUp
(47,209 posts)tomm2thumbs
(13,297 posts)Yup, you are right and it holds up today
MFM008
(19,828 posts)The Sagnussum ocean from one of my favorite movies as a kid.
randome
(34,845 posts)[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]
Baitball Blogger
(46,775 posts)HuskyOffset
(892 posts)...and your "science". It's obviously the water from the Great Flood. God's just storing it down there in case He needs it for something, like cooling the earth down from global warming, which doesn't exist. Or drowning Satan, who is very real. Read the Bible.
*This post is sarcasm.
LisaLynne
(14,554 posts)+1 for that comment.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)gets jerked around by this guy , huh?
yellowcanine
(35,703 posts)That's what I'm talkin' about! TIME!
Genesis 7:11
11 In the six hundredth year of Noahs life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)They can go there on their way to hell.
yellowcanine
(35,703 posts)Maybe if one goes up the River Styx you get to the fountains?
But of course one has to be dead to get on the river at all I believe.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)packman
(16,296 posts)Those Bronze Age guys sitting in caves writting that shit knew, just knew I tell you, about all the fountains of the great deep.
griloco
(832 posts)Last edited Sat Jun 14, 2014, 02:44 AM - Edit history (1)
Heaven has windows? As a loyal little I must inform Mr. Tony.
Swede Atlanta
(3,596 posts)Republicans will deny it to be true because the Bible doesn't say anything about a hidden buried ocean in Genesis.
yellowcanine
(35,703 posts)Genesis 7:11
11 In the six hundredth year of Noahs life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
Fundies will seize on this, count on it.
phantom power
(25,966 posts)Where that water leaks to the surface:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_(Baxter_novel)
NickB79
(19,285 posts)One of my all-time favorite authors.
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)toby jo
(1,269 posts)btw, what else are they looking for that most of us haven't yet conceived?
HelenWheels
(2,284 posts)I'm reading a fiction book about this. The scientists get trapped by the underground ocean that has a man eating monster in it.
PeoViejo
(2,178 posts)..more like high-pressure Steam. Water of Hydration can be easily driven off by heat. All that needs to be done is lower the pressure being applied to the mineral holding it.
paleotn
(18,003 posts)....that there's some great, hidden ocean down there, ringwoodite does not hold liquid water within its structure, but hydroxide ions. Shave off one of the H atoms in normal H2O and you have hydroxide, HO. If it picks up a H+ cation, than bingo, H2O.
This is interesting though. Some of the relatively recent findings, blurring of the lines between comets and asteroids (most may be a combination of both) suggests that water was present throughout the formation of Earth, thus beginning a more geologically based water cycle we're just beginning to understand.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)it's a great example of how journalism misunderstands science and transmits it in a mangled form that misleads the public as to what the original science is actually saying. They keep saying 'water' and 'ocean', and the casual reader instantly goes to thinking they're saying underground rivers and giant, water-filled caverns.
randome
(34,845 posts)[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesnt always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one youre already in.[/center][/font][hr]
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)I think my geology doctoral advisor would disown me and demand my doctorate back if I did
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)The water is literally dissolved in the mantle minerals, which is a hard concept to envision - we usually think of solids being dissolved in water, not the other way around.
Inkfreak
(1,695 posts)FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)than it is to get deep inside the planet.
Response to Hissyspit (Original post)
Inkfreak This message was self-deleted by its author.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Than the comet theory. Though I always have a preference for phenomena that arise from endogenous processes rather than non-sequitur exogenous disruptive events. (That's why it took me a long time to allow that the asteroid got the dinosaurs, rather than their own success in over-exploiting their own habitat. The latter being a kind of anthropomorphic tale, I know.)
tofuandbeer
(1,314 posts)defacto7
(13,485 posts)an OMG moment for me.
roamer65
(36,748 posts)Water can exist in its three forms within that zone...solid, liquid and gaseous within that zone. I never really believed comet impacts could have created our oceans.
Not surprised on hearing this story and it really makes sense.
Gives us hope that there are other planets out there like ours.
Stephen Baxter's Flood anyone.
Hekate
(90,978 posts)Raphael Campos
(46 posts)There IS water down there!