Massive 'ocean' discovered towards Earth's core

L

Lightscribe

Banned
Joined
Sep 10, 2007
Messages
5,695
Reaction score
1
Location
...On the beach, Strand
Water, water everywhere... :p

Massive 'ocean' discovered towards Earth's core

19:00 12 June 2014 by Andy Coghlan

A reservoir of water three times the volume of all the oceans has been discovered deep beneath the Earth's surface. The finding could help explain where Earth's seas came from.

The water is hidden inside a blue rock called ringwoodite that lies 700 kilometres underground in the mantle, the layer of hot rock between Earth's surface and its core.

The huge size of the reservoir throws new light on the origin of Earth's water. Some geologists think water arrived in comets as they struck the planet, but the new discovery supports an alternative idea that the oceans gradually oozed out of the interior of the early Earth.

"It's good evidence the Earth's water came from within," says Steven Jacobsen of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The hidden water could also act as a buffer for the oceans on the surface, explaining why they have stayed the same size for millions of years.
Pinging the planet

Jacobsen's team used 2000 seismometers to study the seismic waves generated by more than 500 earthquakes. These waves move throughout Earth's interior, including the core, and can be detected at the surface. "They make the Earth ring like a bell for days afterwards," says Jacobsen.

By measuring the speed of the waves at different depths, the team could figure out which types of rocks the waves were passing through. The water layer revealed itself because the waves slowed down, as it takes them longer to get through soggy rock than dry rock.

Jacobsen worked out in advance what would happen to the waves if water-containing ringwoodite was present. He grew ringwoodite in his lab, and exposed samples of it to massive pressures and temperatures matching those at 700 kilometres down.

Sure enough, they found signs of wet ringwoodite in the transition zone 700 kilometres down, which divides the upper and lower regions of the mantle. At that depth, the pressures and temperatures are just right to squeeze the water out of the ringwoodite. "It's rock with water along the boundaries between the grains, almost as if they're sweating," says Jacobsen.
Damp down there

Jacobsen's finding supports a recent study by Graham Pearson of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Pearson studied a diamond from the transition zone that had been carried to the surface in a volcano, and found that it contained water-bearing ringwoodite, the first strong evidence that there was lots of water in the transition zone (Nature, doi.org/s6h).

"Since our initial report of hydrous ringwoodite, we've found another ringwoodite crystal, also containing water, so the evidence is now very strong," says Pearson.

So far, Jacobsen only has evidence that the watery rock sits beneath the US. He now wants to find out if it wraps around the entire planet.

"We should be grateful for this deep reservoir," says Jacobsen. "If it wasn't there, it would be on the surface of the Earth, and mountain tops would be the only land poking out."

http://www.newscientist.com/article...covered-towards-earths-core.html#.U5spNVFKUxA
Click to expand...
 
Only mountain tops sticking out above the waterline, ey?
Water coming out of a rock, ey?

:p
 
Wow, that's deep. Far deeper than I would have thought.

We already know there's more water than all the oceans just a few km underground. This new much deeper reservoir adds to that.

It seems the crust has unimaginably vast quantities of water that finds its way to the surface, which is oddly reassuring in this current historical phase where we're battered by warnings of impending disaster from the Millenniallists, Warmists, Conspiratorialists, Fundamentalists and other purveyors of imminent doom.

We've barely begun to scratch the surface, so to speak, of how the planet is configured.
 
We should be grateful for this deep reservoir," says Jacobsen. "If it wasn't there, it would be on the surface of the Earth, and mountain tops would be the only land poking out."
Click to expand...

I find the notion of that pretty fcking scary.
 
If it is still oozing, could that account (at least partly) for rising ocean levels too?
 
Dolby said:
If it is still oozing, could that account (at least partly) for rising ocean levels too?
Click to expand...

->
The hidden water could also act as a buffer for the oceans on the surface, explaining why they have stayed the same size for millions of years.
Click to expand...

I think the melting of millions of tons of arctic ice has more to do with ocean levels rising than water trapped 700km below the Earth's surface.
 
HammerDown said:
Unless you have a big boat that could, oh I don't know, load you family and a bunch of animals......would stop swearing if I were you though.....;)
Click to expand...

Shhhhh! There isn't enough space for him on this one
 
"We should be grateful for this deep reservoir," says Jacobsen. "If it wasn't there, it would be on the surface of the Earth, and mountain tops would be the only land poking out."
Click to expand...

In other words, christian fundamentalists just got the ammo they needed to continue claiming noah's ark was real.
 
"If it wasn't there, it would be on the surface of the Earth, and mountain tops would be the only land poking out
Click to expand...

Mmmmmmm, interesting very interesting indeed.
 
eehellfire said:
The religionists will love this in their arguments with the Atheists
Click to expand...


They will, they should. Actually people should stop "fighting" about it but since they won't - GO TEAM RELIGION!
 
Yeah, uhm, not entirely. But if you want to believe this just proved the christian religion is the real one, go ahead.

"There is technically enough water on the planet for the Noah's ark story"
"See, this proves it was real!!!"
"So how did it get 700km under the earth's crust?"
"God works in mysterious ways..."
 
Zenbaas said:
This must be where godzilla is hiding!
Click to expand...

Actually it's where this guy sleeps, until the day of the Awakening! He eats Godzillas for breakfast.

cthulhufb1.jpg
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X