Huge stores of oxygen found deep inside Earth

[IDemo]

Process trapping oxygen could be responsible for some of planet's water

By Jeanna Bryner
Updated: 8:29 a.m. MT Oct 1, 2007

A mineral that acts like a sponge beneath Earth's surface stores more oxygen than expected, keeping our planet from becoming dry and inhospitable like Mars.

The key to the abundant oxygen storage is the mineral majorite, which exists deep below Earth's surface in the mantle. Without the oxygen stockpile, Earth would probably be a barren planet hostile to life, authors of a study suggest in the Sept. 27 issue of the journal Nature.

The researchers examined majorite in the lab under conditions mimicking the Earth's deep interior and also near the planet's surface. The results showed that under deep-Earth conditions of high temperature and pressure, majorite stores large amounts of oxygen. When the temperature and pressure were decreased, as occurs near Earth's surface, the majorite decomposed and released the oxygen.

"The Earth's upper mantle can store, therefore, much more oxygen than previously expected," said lead author Arno Rohrbach, a doctoral student at the University of Bonn's Mineralogical Institute in Germany.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21082196/

[groovedaddy]

1. I'm already breathing easier...

Have we reached "peak oxygen" yet?

[Lautremont]

2. Wait until it's discovered that majorite can fuel a Humvee.

The stuff won't last long. Better save a few jars of oxygen while you can.

[liberal N proud]

3. How fast can man deplete it now that we know it is there?

[HereSince1628]

4. All that oxygen just looking for some carbon...imagine how much more CO2

is possible if we could consume it :(

[budibudinski]

5. Has Bush bought the royalties for this too?

think of the profit to made by marketing fresh toxin free oxygen? Bush crime family has tapped into profitting from the gifts of the Planet Earth...Oil & gas, water in Paraguay, why not oxygen from the Earth's inner core.
Bets Bush/Cheney will find a way to OWN the royalties from this new find also.

[IDemo]

6. No, but the civilization living beneath the crust has been ID'd as terroristic

[Wildewolfe]

11. He sold em...

... to dark helmet... Spaceball 1 is already enroute.

[parasim]

7. Well, of course, just look at this scientific graphic...

[IDemo]

8. Where did you find that right wing science text?

[Zensea]

9. I prefer this Agharta

[unpossibles]

10. I have been thinking of making some nutbar website

that makes no sense and is hard to read.

Thanks for the link!