Massive 'ocean' discovered towards Earth's core
newscientist.com
newscientist.com
I get the feeling for all the tabloid stuff, someone on the Daily Mail's staff just loves to find all the weird scientific studies and news that can be turned into bat-boy-style headlines. With the main difference being that the Daily Mail doesn't make up the original discovery but might be a bit hype-driven. I do wish they would provide a bit better links to the story.
The other sad thing, and it is truly sad, is that they sometimes actually are more factual about stories in the US great plains then the US east coast papers[1].
1) the NY Times in particular seems to be incapable of choosing the correct state for North / South Dakota Senators.
EDIT: I didn't mean to imply that this exists only under the U.S. and nowhere else. I meant to imply "so far, the existence of this reservoir has only only been confirmed under the U.S.; the rest of the world is unknown at this point".
EDIT: 2% = 1/50th of the surface. 3-oceans * 50 = 150. (1 * all earth's oceans) / (150 * all earth's oceans) =~ 0.00666...
So oceans only occupy 0.00123% of the Earth's volume. There's a lot of room below us.
[1]: http://ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/etopo1_ocean_volumes.html
[2]: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/earthfact.htm...
So it will be significantly less than 150 times more than surface oceans. Still huge probably.
They said they only have evidence underneath Earth. Whether it's under other countries is still under investigation. To emphasize my point, note how he states that if this water were all to rise to the surface, then only the mountain tops would be visible.
http://www.universetoday.com/65588/what-percent-of-earth-is-...
The deepest point in earth's oceans is 12 km or so, and the average is ~4km. Now, imagine this discovered reservoir is 400 km "deep". It means it will have 3x the volume of all oceans even if its surface area is 30 times smaller.
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.
The transition zone is part of the Earth’s mantle, and
is located between the lower mantle and the upper
mantle, between a depth of 410 and 660 km.
Hypothetically, if it were a continuous shell of pure, fresh water encapsulating the entire inner mantle and core, and if it happened to be 200km thick, with an inner surface at 600 km deep (the shell's floor starts at a radius of 5,400 km) and an outer surface at 400 km deep (the shell's ceiling stops at a radius of 5,600 km), the intervening space could collect possibly a volume close to 76 billion liters of water.
Compare this to a hypothetical scenario, where our planet's rocky crust has a radius of 5,995 km, and is completely covered in one giant ocean of water 5 km deep (think Water World with Kevin Costner) for a total diameter of 12,000 km, this huge ubiquitous ocean would only contain 2 billion liters of water.
So, in a world of perfect spherical maximums, rounded to the nearest billions in liters, this subterranian zone could contain 38 times the water we currently observe on the surface of the earth.
http://water.usgs.gov/edu/pictures/full-size/global-water-vo...
1. All water (largest sphere)
2. All of Fresh water.
3. Fresh water in lakes and rivers.
Reference: http://water.usgs.gov/edu/gallery/global-water-volume.html
"The water storage capacity of the upper and lower
mantles is less than 0.2 wt%. The transition zone has a
storage capacity of approximately 0.5–1 wt% due to a
water solubility of about 1–3 wt% in wadsleyite and
ringwoodite, which are the major con- stituents of the
transition zone. Thus, the transition zone may be a
major water reservoir in the Earth’s interior."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_zone_%28Earth%29
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.
To me, as someone who knows not that much about all this, that sounds like it could well be hooey. It could be voodoo. It could be a Tall Tale.
Can anyone explain to me (like I am 5 years old) how such things get vetted or taken seriously or whatever?
No, I am not trolling.
Thanks.
To be vetted, an experiment will be peer reviewed by others for obvious mistakes, compared to existing results and mathematical models, and duplicated by others.
Here, you would be better off asking about the parts you don't understand such as how they came to their conclusion, or how their reasoning considering the article works.
Seismometers can detect those waves. How fast the waves of a given type move depends on the kind of rock or soil they are moving through. When we measure how long the wave took to go from the point of origin to a given seismometer, that tells us a little bit about the kind of rock or soil on that wave's path. The wave might have passed through many different kinds of rock or soil, so just looking at one wave doesn't tell much--just that the path had some mix of rock and soil overall that gave that speed.
We aren't limited to one wave, fortunately. Every time something generates detectable waves, we get a little more data on the composition of the rock and soil on the paths between that source and every seismometer that measures those waves.
The more data we get, the more constraints that puts on what kind of rock and soil can be where and still be consistent with all of the observations.
For things reasonably near the surface the deductions from seismic wave analysis can be checked against observation from tunnels and wells to verify that the methods work.
Observing how waves travel through planetary bodies is one of the most useful methods for looking into the interior of these objects. On a fundamental level, it's an advanced version of knocking against a large metal silo to determine if it's empty or full.
However, detailed findings can be tricky sometimes. In this case, the geologist calculated beforehand what the frequency absorption fingerprint of "rock containing water" would be, and then he found a matching signature in the measurements he took.
Indeed there are several things that could have gone wrong: the signature of the substance might be different than previously assumed, or the seismic measurements themselves could be faulty.
Over time we'll get more measurement opportunities and we'll refine our models as more scientists will work on this. There might be more evidence from other sources available if we know how to look for it, too. So the confidence level in this finding will be modified in the future.
Right now it's just an intriguing but singular result that deserves further study.
See, I guess that is my issue here: The article talks like we KNOW this for sure, not like "preliminary results suggest..." when no one has sampled anything that deep to verify it etc.
Thank you.
The paper refers to the mineral ringwoodite, for which the anhydrous formula is (Fe,Mg)SiO4. Hydrous ringwoodite has the capacity to take some OH groups in the mineral structure, probably in a coupled substitution with vacancies/defects/some trace element such as titanium. Recently a ringwoodite sample was found that had 1.5 weight % H2O in its structure. What that means is it is entirely unlikely that there will ever be free water in the mantle, because you can dissolve so much of it in the minerals. Free water can only exist when the minerals can not longer fit any more in them.
What the authors did was take some hydrous ringwoodite and put it in a diamond anvil cell and heat a bit of it with a laser. The bit they heated transformed into the minerals perovskite and ferropericlase, and amorphous material the authors interpret as quenched silicate liquid (i.e. glass, analogous to obsidian). The perovskite and ferropericlase have less capacity to dissolve H2O than the ringwoodite, so when ringwoodite breaks down, some H2O is releasd. However, instead of forming free water, the H2O reacts with the other minerals to form a silicate liquid (i.e. magma with some H2O dissolved in it). This reaction is referred to as dehydration melting: the reaction of a hydrous mineral phase to form other mineral phases and a silicate liquid. You dehydrate a mineral and form melt.
The authors then relate the mineral scale reactions to global scale seismic structure. Low velocity regions are observed when mantle downwells from above the 660 km continuity to below it. Low velocity zones are interpreted to be associated with the presence of silicate liquids. Thus, the authors suggest that downwelling of hydrous ringwoodite bearing mantle from above the 660 discontinuity to below it will result in a phase change to pervoskite + ferropericlase + silicate liquid, consistent with the presence of low velocity zones. The amount of silicate liquid produced is about 1%. You don't need much silicate liquid to make low velocity zones.
This entire story does not involve free H2O at any stage. Any reference to oceans is misleading.
I wonder if the author of "Flood" had heard of this theory and incorporated it into his book. Try as I might I can't find any details about this jungle submarine base any more - seems its been wiped off the 'net.
Another thing I thought of is the Cataclysm as described by Szukalski, that weirdo. He posited that every 64,000 years, the Earth undergoes a massive upheaval due to "Gravity heat" which busts open the Earths' core and releases massive amounts of water from within. Now that there is actual scientific evidence of this whacky theory, I'm starting to get a bit more interested in finding that jungle submarine base .. ;)
That must mean it is true!
If the story of the great flood (Holy Bible) is real - could it be that this is where all of the water has gone? Could this water some time in the future "rise up" once more and create a second worldwide flood?
> 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%207&vers...
They believed that they were on a flat earth under a dome that separated the atmosphere from huge amounts of water above (hence the blue color of the sky) and below (hence the oceans). They believed that the dome leaked sometimes, causing rain. They believed that the flat earth leaked too, causing rivers.
More information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_cosmology
I guess something other than water would have to be used next time :-)
Science answers questions like this with evidence, but the inherent premise in your first question is that there was a world wide flood to begin with and there is no evidence other than religious anecdotes to support this.
Assuming that there was a world wide flood just doesn't make sense when there is no compelling reason to think there ever has been such a thing. However, what kind of process would you imagine would bring enough water out from under the Earth for 370 days and then make it go back. We are talking about an enormous amount of water. If you wanted to build a pump that could move such volumes of water out of the Earth, and then back in you are entering the realm of fantasy. Of course if you're willing to assume the work of supernatural powers that's where you started from.
There are a great deal of many problems with a world wide flood story, the origin of all that water is just one. Kangaroos making a trip from Australia to the Middle East and back for a boat trip is another.
It could create a flood. Not a second one.
> could it be that this is where all of the water has gone?
No. The process doesn't seem reversible.
Analogy. If someone tells you they filled a balloon with water and pierced it, and later you see a balloon with water, you may believe they un-pierced it, unless you know physics and you learned that you can't un-pierce this balloon just like that. Then, the more likely explanation is either that someone filled another balloon, or that they didn't pierce it after all.
If the great flood had been real, either we'd find evidence of there being a lot less oceans in the Pleistocene (which we do not), or we'd come from another planet. (But then, how would we have traveled? Why is there no evidence of it? Why do we fit perfectly in a common phylogeny with all other species?)
All in all, that theory doesn't (puts on sunglasses) hold water.
Then, he claims that the water didn't go anywhere and argues that we have little evidence of human civilization and agriculture before the end of the last ice age is because the cities of humanity now currently exist under the sea, in areas which were once coastline before the sea level rose. He also argues that the greatest trove of new information about humanity is underwater, which on a whole has had very little archaeological research done.
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"
"In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."Those would be some pretty extreme extremophiles!
> However, it is thought unlikely that microbes could survive at temperatures above 150 °C, as the cohesion of DNA and other vital molecules begins to break down at this point. [2]
Aww man! Though there are some pretty amazing extremophiles out there anyway!
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_%28geology%29#Temperatur...
Anyone up for a hydrogen peroxide cocktail?
Nevertheless, I have no idea of the porosity level that could exists at those depths.
2) At 700km depth pressures are of order 21 Giga Pascals (~207000 atmospheres) and temperatures about ~1900ºC. Water is not the water we know at these conditions, it is a supercritical fluid. The line separating liquid and gas phases ended at much lower temperatures.
Being in many cultures isn't evidence against the story, as it seems you are trying to imply.
It could simply mean there was one huge flood and lots of cultures recorded it.
I am aware there is no scientific mechanism to cause a worldwide flood, this is explicitly about divine intervention. (i.e. a miracle, not creationism pseudo science).
However, since there are reasons other than reason and evidence for people to believe in a flood, no amount of reasoning or evidence will change those beliefs, so I propose we focus on the tantalizing science fiction implications instead.
1. Why only those? Isn't it global?
2. This comment has no value without an academic paper to reference. If nobody has studied it, this is just hot air. If someone has, you are expected to link to it in these lands.
3. It's "Africa". Not "affrica".
It worked for you, didn't it? It also worked for me. That's two of us. There are more. Keep the uh... "faith".
Also note that floods don't simply go in a straight line from A->B. In practice because towns are built on the more stable land, what you'd see happen is pretty much the worst possible scenario : the water would surround cities, first making most roads unusable (non hardened ones because they become mud, hardened ones because some parts of them collapse). Then the water level would rise until nothing remains above the water level. (I've got some experience living in Northwest Europe, and every 20 years or so you get introduced to this problem firsthand)
Of course, even though the affected area was huge, it was still a local phenomenon.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis
That said, if there never was such a flood there would likely be evidence that it never happened.
What would evidence that there was never a global flood look like? One example might be "lack of a global species disruption in the fossil layer". But that's just absence of evidence again.
I think there are some predictions you could make there. However every single one of them is just so far divorced from what we observe that they aren't even worth enumerating.
"Proof" is a complicated word. People typically take it to mean "slam-dunk, 100%, without-a-doubt proves the case." But little in science ever works like that. Math, sure, where you can prove things analytically. But when trying to "prove" things about the universe, you have to collect bodies of evidence, and see how well that evidence matches expectations.
So, when you go out looking for something, and despite your best efforts, cannot find it, then that may not "prove" that something did not happen, but it is good evidence in support that it did not.
Despite centuries of scientists looking hard for evidence of it (and knowing what kind of evidence they are looking for, adn being able to get it), they've been unable to get any. That's as strong evidence of the inexistence of a phenomenun as you can get.
Given Christianity has roots in Judaism and Judaism probably has some roots in Sumerian religion, I'm not sure if you could say that. Religions evolve from other religions, and in a geographic area, are likely to have common ancestors.
These generally co-occur in water rich areas, such as low-lying coastal regions or flat, regularly inundated river plains. Thus, flooding in relatively populated early centers of civilization is likely to be a common experience across human cultures, purely by the geographical reality of proximity to water.
Furthermore, recording such events is natural in a literate civilization since the destruction a nontrivial event might cause against food, shelter and population would affect all echelons of society.
If so, can you give some examples?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_the_Bible#Chall...
(by way of illustration: most of Robert Parker's Spencer novels are set in Boston. You could prove via archeological evidence that the buildings and streets mentioned in these stories exist - they weren't invented out of whole cloth - but this wouldn't prove Spencer himself ever existed much less did any of the things claimed about him in the stories.)
Sorta like how a lot of them support Israel for the sole purpose of instigating the end times.
Eventually we will opt to dismantle the Earth to build more habitats, but it'll be more like peeling an onion layer by layer. By the time we are peeling 700 km, we'll encounter the water.
The flood myth is very persistent but we need to have in mind that humanity was tiny back then. So even a 2011 Japanese like tsunami could be the flood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storegga_Slide
The Storegga Slide might also have been, at least partly, responsible for the disappearance of Doggerland under the North Sea:
I'm not sure why you think creationists are dumb people. Even scientists don't agree with all theories in the science books.
So yeah, maybe there was an event where fountains of the deep opened up. Some people believe dinosaurs were killed because after that a change in atmosphere provided less food. Others believe a comet killed them. There is and isn't proof for both theories so maybe there is truth in both.
Our creation / existence is one big riddle everyone tries to solve different.
A good scientist knows other theories may come and change the landscape. So you need to keep an open mind.
That's why I posted the link to the theory of the deep fountains. I think it's a good theory explaining some events in the past.
Is it true? I don't know. But we also have no proof for evolution. But the theory of evolution works very well to explain a lot.
The only science that has proof is math.
(I'm not a creationist by the way)
>>But we also have no proof for evolution.
Then you must have missed a lot of pretty much everything going in science in the last ~300 years. If ancient bones are not "scientific" enough for you, look at bacteria, which evolve(yes,evolve, not magically change due to divine intervention) in a space of days,not millennia.
This is incorrect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_exp...
What does that mean? I'm not sure how you'd go about quantifying scarcity in any meaningful way. Are we going by volume? Price? If price, then price per what?
The only thing stopping California from building massive solar-powered desalination plants is that bullying the surrounding states is (currently) cheaper and easier (politically).
The first of these problems has an easy free market solution, and sets a hard cap on the value of drinkable water (as de-salination plants can scale linearly to meet our needs). The second of these is more difficult, but still has a worst case scenerio of needing to move people to water rich areas, and re-build infastructure to support the new population distribution, as well as dealing with a decrease in the habitable land area.