(ORDO NEWS) — Deep below the Earth‘s surface is a huge reservoir of water. Geologists estimate that it contains three times as much water as all the oceans on our surface.
In 2014, a team of US researchers used 2,000 seismometers to study seismic waves from more than 500 earthquakes.
By studying the speed of the waves at different depths, the team determined which rocks the waves passed through before reaching the sensors.
They found that about 700 kilometers below our feet in the “transition zone” between the lower mantle and the upper mantle is a rock called ringwoodite.
Ringwoodite is formed only under strong pressure directed towards the center of the Earth. Only one sample has been found from the interior of the Earth.
It has also been found in meteorites as a tiny diamond. Ringudite contains water, but not in liquid form, but inside the molecular structure of minerals.
“Ringwoodite is like a sponge that absorbs water.
There is something special about the crystal structure of ringwoodite that allows it to attract hydrogen and hold water,” explained geophysicist Steve Jacobsen.
“This mineral can hold a lot of water in deep mantle conditions.”
Previous experiments had shown that ringwoodite could contain up to 1.5 percent water, and the seismic waves detected were consistent with the rocks under our feet containing water.
The team calculated that if only 1 percent of the rock in the transition zone is water, that would mean it contains three times as much water as all the oceans on Earth’s surface. This is in line with their results.
“If there is a significant amount of water in the transition zone, then there should be some melting in areas where there is flow into the lower mantle,” said seismologist Brandon Schmandt, “and this is consistent with what we found.”
Jacobsen believes that the results of the study once again prove that the water on Earth rose to the surface from the inside.
“I think we are finally seeing evidence of a water cycle throughout the Earth, which could help explain the vast amount of liquid water on the surface of our habitable planet,” Jacobsen added.
“Scientists have been looking for this missing deep water for decades.”
Previously, scientists from the University of Cambridge in the UK found that rocky planets like our Earth are able to ‘hide’ water in minerals deep below the surface.
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