
Massive 'ocean' discovered towards Earth's core - uptown
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25723-massive-ocean-discovered-towards-earths-core.html
======
3rd3
This seems to be a confirmation of a study that what was published in March:
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2579584/The-v...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2579584/The-
vast-reservoir-hidden-Earths-crust-holds-water-ALL-oceans.html)

~~~
teh_klev
Woo...Daily Mail being used as a news source I'd avoid that comic in future,
it's the UK equivalent of the National Enquirer.

~~~
talmand
Sources can be a joke until they happen to be correct. Sometimes it's worth
considering the claim despite the source.

------
daveslash
I know that truth can be stranger than fiction, but am I the only one a little
hesitant to believe that underneath the U.S. alone is a reservoir that is
_three times_ the volume of _all the oceans combined_?

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".

~~~
eliben
3D space is infinitely larger than 2D space :)

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.

~~~
pavement
From the article:

    
    
      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. 
    

From wikipedia:

    
    
      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.
    

So, if our planet is roughly 12,000 km in diameter (6,000 km to the center),
then this region of depth represents a 100-200 km thick shell where pockets of
water may exist. But let's max it out, and try to find the volume ((4/3) * (pi
r^3)) using very rough, round numbers to get an upper ceiling.

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.

~~~
tlb
You dropped some zeros. A billion liters is a cube 100 meters on a side, more
like a drop than an ocean.

~~~
pavement
Wait, you're right. I think I dropped about maybe 4 zeroes off the exponential
notation. Strike the "billion" and make it like 10^11th or 10^12th power.
Either way, I think the ratios still work.

~~~
pavement
...and oh yeah, by the way, my units were the wrong order of magnitude;
should've been kiloliters (not just liters), on top of the exponential
notation.

------
Mz
Excerpt:

 _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.

~~~
Udo
It's a fair question.

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.

~~~
Mz
_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.

------
ceejayoz
Uh oh.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_(Baxter_novel)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_\(Baxter_novel\))

~~~
fit2rule
I remember in the 90's there was a conspiracy theory going around that the
'global elites' had created a massive submarine base - in the middle of the
Amazon jungle, i.e. hundreds of miles from the oceans - specifically to use as
a survival plan in case of a massive flood. There was even a site dedicated to
the 'discovery' of photo's of the massive submarine, taken from a light
airplane which crashed .. the camera was found and later the pictures were
made available.

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 .. ;)

~~~
marcosdumay
Well, there are free and almost free satelite photos of the entire Amazon
jungle available. Thus, nothing is stopping you.

~~~
ceejayoz
A 100 foot high canopy means concealing something in the Amazon would be
pretty straightforward.

~~~
marcosdumay
One can easily hide something that has less than 20 or so meters hight
(because trees rarely get over that height), and smaller than a few trees in
area. If the thing you want to hide is bigger than that, you'll have better
luck in a cave, or disguising it as a rock and placing it in the middle of a
desert.

------
iM8t
Just hypothetically.

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?

~~~
cma
If by rise up once more you mean it rose up the first time, then no--the bible
claims it just rained a bunch of days.

~~~
baddox
That's false.

> 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...](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%207&version=NIV)

~~~
anon4
That's really ambiguous. I read it to mean deep springs in heaven opened and
it rained from them.

~~~
espadrine
It isn't ambiguous under the commonly accepted scientific facts of the time,
in that particular civilization.

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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_cosmology)

~~~
huxley
Ted Chiang played around with ancient Near East cosmology to great effect in
his story "The Tower of Babylon"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babylon_(story)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babylon_\(story\))

------
vixin
An ocean as imagined by Jules Verne in Journey to the Centre of the Earth. A
splendid bit of early fantasy fiction. I recommend 'Lost' \- the chapter where
the narrator gets separated from his Uncle in caverns 70 miles underground.

~~~
johnchristopher
Except that it looks more like a huge rocky sponge.

------
zebranky
Seems like a pretty nice place for a Great Old One to fhtagn.

~~~
Nanzikambe
For the lazy, it's "dream" or "dreaming" :)

    
    
       "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"
    

translates to:

    
    
       "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."

------
orthecreedence
It would be so cool to get a sample of that water (assuming it does in fact
exist) and see what type of life is in it (if any). It would be almost like
seeing life from another planet.

~~~
lilsunnybee
> In the mantle, temperatures range between 500 to 900 °C (932 to 1,652 °F) at
> the upper boundary with the crust; to over 4,000 °C (7,230 °F) at the
> boundary with the core. [1]

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...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_%28geology%29#Temperature)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthermophile#History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthermophile#History)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile)

------
NAFV_P
After reading this article, I was reminded of [0]. The Earth's core is hot due
to the presence of radioactive isotopes, both the uranium-238 and thorium-232
series occur in substantial quantities. This could alter the chemical
composition of the water present due to radiolysis.

Anyone up for a hydrogen peroxide cocktail?

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster)

------
johnchristopher
The quote would better be placed around 'discovered' rather than 'ocean'
considering it's all lab experiments and a pair of wet diamonds. Not to
dismiss the hypothesis/theory, which seems pretty solid (no pun intended), but
it's not like we discovered a new ocean like the Europeans discovered a new
continent centuries ago.

------
EGreg
One would think that water's density is smaller than the rock. Why wouldn't it
eventually rise to the surface above the denser material if the surrounding
rock wasn't solid?

~~~
techas
1) Porosity is the ratio of the volume of openings (voids) to the total volume
of material. Porosity represents the storage capacity of the geologic
material. On the other hand, permeability is a measure of the ease with which
fluids will flow though a porous rock. Although a rock may be highly porous,
if the voids are not interconnected, then fluids within the closed, isolated
pores cannot move. This situation is commonly found in nature and represents a
challenge for the extraction or the injection in reservoirs.

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.

~~~
EGreg
I thought at those depths the rock isn't solid, so why would water (or
supercritical fluid) need a lot of pores to go through? Not to mention, can't
supercritical fluids effuse through solids?

------
kristopolous
Is it a closed biosphere? What's in it?

~~~
lilsunnybee
Very likely not a biosphere because of the very extreme temperatures (for any
type of life anyways, even extremophiles), but a lot of things we've
discovered over the years used to be thought to be impossible too!

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7888553](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7888553)

------
trhway
and the moment we learn how to do fracking through 700km deep well...

~~~
JAFTEM
We're fracking at a couple thousand meters right now, I'd say 700km is a
decently-sized buffer.

------
fennecfoxen
Coming next: creationist interpretation of this in a Biblical flood narrative
with reference to "opening up the fountains of the deep".

~~~
melling
The flood story is covered in many cultures.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh_flood_myth](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh_flood_myth)

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_myth](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_myth)

~~~
chc
AFAIK the Epic of Gilgamesh does not include the "fountains of the deep"
aspect of the Noah story that's relevant here, and also there aren't a lot of
Sumerian creationists around.

~~~
melling
I was simply pointing out that there are many flood stories in many cultures.
I added another link for more references. I just know that Gilgamesh is one of
the oldest. Many cultures, including the some Indians in North America, have
incorporated it into their mythology.

~~~
ars
> I was simply pointing out that there are many flood stories in many cultures

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).

~~~
nitrogen
Everything that happens on a geological scale leaves geological evidence.
There is no such evidence for a global flood. It's not just the mechanism for
_causing_ the flood that's missing, but any sign of it whatsoever. I grew up
learning about and believing in a global flood, and confronting the hard truth
that there is no evidence for a flood was an important part of my intellectual
development.

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.

~~~
tinco
The absence of evidence is not proof of the contrary. I am an atheist and I
laud your dedication to evidence based reason, but don't go overboard and
ignore things many people believe are true, often they do for a reason.

That said, if there never was such a flood there would likely be evidence that
it never happened.

~~~
knodi123
I'm curious what you think "evidence that it never happened" would look like,
except for looking like the absence of evidence?

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.

~~~
jcromartie
You're talking about the idea of the Genesis flood, occurring some 4500 years
ago, drastically rearranging the recently-created Earth's geology, wiping out
every living thing except for the few that survived on a boat that landed on a
single mountain in what is modern-day Turkey?

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.

------
timmyelliot
I hope they find the dinasouars like in Verne's A Journey to the Center of the
Earth

------
orky56
In the not too distant future, when water becomes a valuable commodity, we'll
have "I drink your milkshake" situations that will get geopolitical very fast.

~~~
pilom
What makes you think this doesn't happen already. Arizona called in the
National Guard on California during construction of tunnels out of Lake Mead.
Mexico has threatened to take the US to international court over the salinity
of the Colorado River. Dynamite was set off numerous times on the aqueducts
that bring water to LA. Hostages have been taken and killed over the
construction of dams in South America. Fresh water already is the scarcest
resource we have in the American West. Far scarcer than oil by a long shot.

~~~
wyager
>Fresh water already is the scarcest resource we have in the American West.

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?

~~~
roc
You have to consider price, particularly in the American West, as desalination
can make as much fresh water as you can afford.

The only thing stopping California from building massive solar-powered
desalination plants is that bullying the surrounding states is (currently)
cheaper and easier (politically).

