Scientists have discovered the underground "Ocean"

Water reserves, three times higher than the volume of the oceans, are contained in the earth's mantle at a depth of several hundred km in the form of hydroxyl groups as part of a mineral called Ringwutite.

This conclusion was reached by a group of researchers led by Dr. Stephen Jacobsen from North-Western University in Illinois. Scientists also believe that water on Earth has an internal origin, it occurred during the formation of the planet, and consider other common hypothesis to be insolvent, according to which comets brought water to our planet. (Her detailed presentation can be read in an interview with astronomer Klim Churumov in the Trv-hunger No. 154.)

Researchers analyzed the testimony of 2 thousand seismographs, which recorded more than 500 earthquakes. The speed of seismic vibrations changed sharply on the border of the upper and lower mantle of the Earth at a depth of 410-660 km. Scientists suggested that at great depths the structure of the olivine mineral, which makes up most of the upper mantle, changes. A variety of Olivin, saturated with water, was called ringwood.

The depth on which the ringwood should lie is too large for the extraction of samples. The first diamond with traces of Ringwood found in Brazil Canadian geochemists from the University of Albert, led by Graham Pirson. He studied diamonds carried out to the surface with a volcanic lava, and found in them signs of the presence of ringwood.

According to Jacobsen, if the water hidden in the mantle would have replenished the world ocean, only the tops of the highest mountains would be visible above its surface.

A.O.,

Based on materials from New Scientist

Read more: Science, DOI: 10.1126/Science.1253358