It feels like there are amazing science stories coming out every day lately, all of which have blown our young minds.
First, there was the discovery of a terrifying black hole pointing right at us, then a massive hole in the sun was found and a lost continent was found after being missing for 375 years.
Now, people only realize that there is a huge ocean hidden under the earth’s crust.
It turns out that there is a vast supply of water 400 miles underground stored in a rock known as Ringwoodite.
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Scientists previously discovered that water is stored within mantle rock in a sponge-like state, which is neither liquid, solid, nor gas, but a fourth state instead.
Scientific paper Published in 2014, Drought Melt in the Upper Mantle and Presenting the Results.
There is three times more water under the surface than in the oceansiStock
“Ringwoodite is like a sponge, absorbing water,” geophysicist Steve Jacobsen said at the time. “There is something very special about the crystal structure of ringwoodite that allows it to attract hydrogen and trap water.”
“This mineral could hold a lot of water under deep mantle conditions,” added Jacobsen, who was part of the team behind the discovery.
He added, “I think we are finally seeing evidence of the entire Earth’s water cycle, which may help explain the vast amount of liquid water on our planet’s habitable surface. Scientists have been searching for this missing deep water for decades.”
Scientists came to the findings at the time after studying earthquakes and discovering that seismographs were picking up shock waves below the Earth’s surface.
From that, they were able to establish that water was trapped in the rock known as Ringwoodite.
If a rock contains only 1 percent water, that means there is three times more water in the Earth’s subsurface than there is in the oceans on the surface.
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