Scientists have discovered a large reservoir of water beneath the Earth’s surface. The water is hidden inside a blue rock called ringwoodite that lies 400 mile underground in the mantle, the layer of hot rock between Earth’s surface and its core. Incredibly, the reservoir is three times the volume of all the oceans on the Earth’s surface, and is located beneath eastern Asia. This discovery could help explain where Earth’s seas came from.
Let’s be clear, though, this discovery does not mean that there is an actual ocean in the center of the Earth. Rather, it is a large reservoir of water that is trapped inside a mineral.
Scientists previously discovered that water is stored inside mantle rock in a sponge-like state, which isn’t a liquid, solid or a gas, but instead a fourth state.
The scientific paper titled “Dehydration melting at the top of the lower mantle” was published in 2014 and laid out the findings, but it has now attracted more attention in the wake of other sensational discoveries about our planet. First, there was the discovery of a terrifying black hole pointing right at us, then there was a huge hole found in the sun and a missing continent found after going missing for 375 years.
“The ringwoodite is like a sponge, soaking up water, there is something very special about the crystal structure of ringwoodite that allows it to attract hydrogen and trap water,” said geophysicist Steve Jacobsen at the time.
“This mineral can contain a lot of water under conditions of the deep mantle,” added Jacobsen, who was part of the team behind the discovery.
He added: “I think we are finally seeing evidence for a whole-Earth water cycle, which may help explain the vast amount of liquid water on the surface of our habitable planet. Scientists have been looking for this missing deep water for decades.”
Scientists made the findings at the time after studying earthquakes and discovering that seismometers were picking up shockwaves under the surface of the Earth.
From that, they were able to establish that the water was being held in the rock known as ringwoodite.
If the rock contained just 1 percent water, it would mean that there is three times more water under the surface of the Earth than there is in the oceans on the surface.
