An amazing discovery.. A huge ocean of fresh water underground
According to a recent study conducted by a group of geologists, there is a huge ocean of fresh water under the earth's crust.
The research team confirmed, during the study published by the "Futuresm" website, that the volume of this water is greater than the volume of water on the surface of the earth, considering that this study may open the door to knowing how water appears on the surface of the planet.
The study indicated that there are huge amounts of water located 400 miles underground, stored in a rock known as "Ringo and Diet".
Northwestern University scientists in Evanston, Illinois, USA, revealed the existence of a reservoir of water deep in the surface of the planet, and its size is 3 times the size of the planet's oceans, as water makes up about 71% of the planet's surface.
According to the study, if the "Ringo and Date" rock contains only 1% of the water on Earth's surface, this means that the volume of water contained in these rocks within the mantle layer is 3 times the volume of water in the oceans, taking into account the huge size of these rocks in Earth core.
It should be noted that this discovery can contribute greatly to knowing the origin of water on the planet in general, and may help in determining the source of the seas and oceans in particular, and thus help in understanding life on the planet in a better way.
It is noteworthy that scientists had discovered earlier that water is stored in a state that is not liquid, solid or gaseous, but rather a different state that is more like a sponge, inside the “mantle rock” region, one of the layers of the globe, and a study was conducted in 2014 about that strange physical state of water. .
At the end of their study, after studying earthquakes, scientists discovered that seismographs were picking up shock waves below the surface of the earth, and they were later able to prove that water was trapped in the "Ringo and Date" rock.
The study pointed to the possibility of a huge reservoir of water, as the high storage capacity of water in the earth's mantle, "whose thickness ranges from 410 to 660 kilometers," indicates this.
Geophysicist Steve Jacobsen, one of the co-authors of this study, said that the "Ringo and Diet" rocks are like sponges, as they absorb water greatly due to their crystal structure, which allows them to trap water inside them and attract hydrogen.
Jacobsen, a member of the discovery team, continued his statement, saying: "It is possible that (Ringo and Daite) rocks contain large quantities of water in the deep mantle."
The geophysicist confirmed that what they found in their study is evidence of the water cycle around the entire Earth, and thus will help explain the presence of the huge amount of liquid water on the surface of the planet, which scientists have been searching for for decades.
Some scientists suggest a theory that the Earth's water comes from comets or asteroids, and this theory indicates that the solar system at the beginning of its formation was very hostile to all types of water on the planet, especially with the sun sending huge amounts of intense ultraviolet radiation, which can break water molecules. By removing hydrogen from the water molecule, which is the most prominent theory currently, according to "NDTV".
This theory led scientists to believe that the ice may have formed far in the solar system, and that bodies carried by "asteroids or comets" later collided with a cooler Earth over millions of years, and the water first concentrated in the Earth's interior and in the mantle, and became trapped in the rocks.
The water was then gradually released to the surface due to the movement of tectonic plates to form seas and oceans, according to geophysicist Steve Jacobsen.
Source : websites