Huge 'Ocean' Discovered Inside Earth

Huge 'Ocean' Discovered Inside Earth

By Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 28 February 2007 01:28 pm ET

www.livescience.com...

Scientists scanning the deep interior of Earth have found evidence of a vast water reservoir beneath eastern Asia that is at least the volume of the Arctic Ocean.

The discovery marks the first time such a large body of water has found in the planet’s deep mantle.

The finding, made by Michael Wysession, a seismologist at Washington University in St. Louis, and his former graduate student Jesse Lawrence, now at the University of California, San Diego, will be detailed in a forthcoming monograph to be published by the American Geophysical Union.

Looking down deep

The pair analyzed more than 600,000 seismograms—records of waves generated by earthquakes traveling through the Earth—collected from instruments scattered around the planet.

They noticed a region beneath Asia where seismic waves appeared to dampen, or “attenuate,” and also slow down slightly. “Water slows the speed of waves a little,” Wysession explained. “Lots of damping and a little slowing match the predictions for water very well.”


Previous predictions calculated that if a cold slab of the ocean floor were to sink thousands of miles into the Earth’s mantle, the hot temperatures would cause water stored inside the rock to evaporate out.

“That is exactly what we show here,” Wysession said. “Water inside the rock goes down with the sinking slab and it’s quite cold, but it heats up the deeper it goes, and the rock eventually becomes unstable and loses its water.”

The water then rises up into the overlying region, which becomes saturated with water [image]. “It would still look like solid rock to you,” Wysession told LiveScience. “You would have to put it in the lab to find the water in it.”

Although they appear solid, the composition of some ocean floor rocks is up to 15 percent water. “The water molecules are actually stuck in the mineral structure of the rock,” Wysession explained. “As you heat this up, it eventually dehydrates. It’s like taking clay and firing it to get all the water out.”

The researchers estimate that up to 0.1 percent of the rock sinking down into the Earth’s mantle in that part of the world is water, which works out to about an Arctic Ocean’s worth of water.

“That’s a real back of the envelope type calculation,” Wysession said. “That’s the best that we can do at this point.”

The Beijing anomaly

Wysession has dubbed the new underground feature the “Beijing anomaly,” because seismic wave attenuation was found to be highest beneath the Chinese capital city. Wysession first used the moniker during a presentation of his work at the University of Beijing.

“They thought it was very, very interesting,” Wysession said. “China is under greater seismic risk than just about any country in the world, so they are very interested in seismology.”

Water covers 70 percent of Earth’s surface and one of its many functions is to act like a lubricant for the movement of continental plates.

“Look at our sister planet, Venus,” Wysession said. “It is very hot and dry inside Venus, and Venus has no plate tectonics. All the water probably boiled off, and without water, there are no plates. The system is locked up, like a rusty Tin Man with no oil.”
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Genesis 7:10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.


Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
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Genesis 8:1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that [was] with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;

Genesis 8:2 The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;

Genesis 8:3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.
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Proverbs 8:27 When he prepared the heavens, I [was] there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:

Proverbs 8:28 When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep:
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Isaiah 41:18 I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
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Isa 51:10 [Art] thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?
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videos.howstuffworks.com...
Here is a short video on geysers.

Pretty interesting information.

Probably could have done without the Bible verses though.

Hollow earth anyone?

Hollow Earth books have been claiming there are vast oceans beneath earth for awhile now. So to the people into esoterica, this is nothing new.

Nice post

[edit on 21-11-2008 by Skyfloating]

great post if one ignores that bible mumbo jumbo at the end

It may be nothing new Skyfloating.

To those who don't believe in Hollow Earth though, who may have just been interested in it, it may perk them up a little bit.

Once you find evidence of something you previously considered to be foolishness (although I'm not suggesting this is "that" type of ocean) it makes you rethink a little bit.

If only for a moment.

reply to post by nyk537


Certainly, certainly. I didnt mean to demean the info. Its captivating.

“It would still look like solid rock to you,” Wysession told LiveScience. “You would have to put it in the lab to find the water in it.”

It's water saturated rock, and this has been covered here on ATS before.
It's not like it's free standing water deep under the crust, it's water that's been taken down with rock at subduction zones and is absorbed by the stone while the water is super heated.

www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Didn't Jules Verne write about an ocean in a hollow earth in "Journey to the Center of the Earth"?

I haven't read it but just saw the (2008) movie last week, and there was such an ocean in the movie.

Originally posted by RuneSpider

“It would still look like solid rock to you..."

It's water saturated rock, and this has been covered here on ATS before.
It's not like it's free standing water deep under the crust, it's water that's been taken down with rock at subduction zones and is absorbed by the stone while the water is super heated.

i guess the water 'ocean'
would very much resemble the oil 'pools'
that are found by deep drilling.


a mega-trillion barrels of never before tapped water
might be more pristine & cleaner than existing polar ice...
and be valuable sometime in the future, when all existing
sources of freshwater (including lake baikal) are polluted or used up.


since the OP thread introduces verses of scripture into the mix,
then christians or even the pope, might consider that this reserve of fresh water is intended for the kingdom established at the 2nd comming
~and should never have beeen made public knowledge~

reply to post by RuneSpider


Thats a party spoiler. I should have read more deeply before embracing it.

Well you had me right up to the sermon.

I didnt come here for that.... there is a church right..... well somewhere round here is a church



Mungo

reply to post by masterweb


unless noah actually lived to be over a million years old this has nothing to do with the bible its taken a very long time for this amount of water to get down there

and even if it were back up here it still wouldnt cover the land just flood chunks of it

sorry

science 4 creationist, pseudo-science 0

i can do this all day how about you? what next banana's an crocoducks?

(he sulking becasue he said science has never once been able to prove the bible right we did even down to fault's with 'let there be light and there was' so now he is sliniging everything against the wall in the hope somthing sticks)





[edit on 21/11/08 by noobfun]

I think science and religion can get together on this one. It was left by the noahrian flood. When a large chunk of ice hit the earth a long, long time ago. Before man kept time or wrote bibles.

Originally posted by RuneSpider

“It would still look like solid rock to you,” Wysession told LiveScience. “You would have to put it in the lab to find the water in it.”

It's water saturated rock, and this has been covered here on ATS before.
It's not like it's free standing water deep under the crust, it's water that's been taken down with rock at subduction zones and is absorbed by the stone while the water is super heated.

www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

I know but you haven't factored in heat and pressure that would release water from the rock.

videos.howstuffworks.com...

Originally posted by noobfun
reply to post by masterweb

 

i can do this all day how about you?

[edit on 21/11/08 by noobfun]

That's pretty sad actually. I don't you need to go out and get some fresh air.

Originally posted by masterweb

That's pretty sad actually. I don't you need to go out and get some fresh air.

no ive opened a window and your still wrong on this

I know but you haven't factored in heat and pressure that would release water from the rock.

and you forgot to factor that it will be slowly released by pressure and heat forcing it towards the surface not in an all at once magic tidal wave appearing from the depths unless 1/4 of the earths crust all decided to fracture at once froma ludicrous ammoutn of pressure that would never build up in one go anyway

steam vents hot springs a geysers do not make the story of noah any less rediculous or impossible

look if the whole of genesis 1 and 2 is disproved by science as we demonstrated do you really think switcing to another story is going to help any or just get you the same results?



[edit on 21/11/08 by noobfun]

reply to post by St Udio


I know this reply comes a little late but you said something that made me think a little deeper......christians or even the pope, might consider that this reserve of fresh water is intended for the kingdom established at the 2nd comming.........I never gave that much thought before ...thanks man!