A Massive Water Reservoir the Size of all Oceans Combined May Exist in Earth’s Mantle

Last year, it was reported that scientists want to drill into the Earth’s mantle, thought to be composed of lava essentially, for the first time in a dangerous endeavor that could cause volcanic eruptions.

Perhaps even more risky, in 2017 it was proposed that researchers drill into the pool of magma beneath Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, to prevent a catastrophic event in North America when the super-volcano in Wyoming erupts… or to accidentally cause the eruption early.

Some plans to drill deep into Earth’s mantle sound harebrained and dangerous, yet I feel an innate curiosity that honestly makes me excited to know what it is made of. However, who knows if the real truth would even be released to the public. Who knows if scientists haven’t already drilled into the mantle without us knowing.

So a few years ago it was revealed that a massive reservoir of water, if not several of them, must exist beneath the surface of the Earth. As far back as 2007, it was reported in separate research that massive amounts of water are present in Earth’s mantle.

A rare gem called ringwoodite was cited as proof that massive “oceans” exist beneath Earth’s surface. Scientists say that ringwoodite is created when a very common material in Earth’s mantle, olivine, is highly pressurized.

When exposed to a lesser amount of pressure, it reverts back into olivine. Ringwoodite was previously found in meteorites and even created in a laboratory setting, but it had never been found in a sample of the Earth’s mantle until a few years ago.

A diamond expert found ringwoodite inside of a seemingly unremarkable brown diamond, and found that about 1.5 percent of the ringwoodite’s weight was composed of trapped water, proving that water exists beneath the Earth’s surface.

Graham Pearson of the University of Alberta stumbled upon the 3 millimeter brown diamond, originally found in Mato Grosso, Brazil, while researching something else. His findings were published in the journal Nature.

His peers from the University of Bayeuth in Germany concluded that the finding “confirms predictions from high-pressure laboratory experiments that a water reservoir comparable in size to all the oceans combined is hidden deep in Earth’s mantle.”

That’s right: they think the water reservoir is comparable in size to all the oceans combined.

According to VICE:

“The Earth’s crust, including the deepest parts of the oceans, reach depths of roughly 100 kilometers. From there, the upper mantle takes up about another 300 kilometers. Between there and the lower mantle is where this piece of ringwoodite was originally from—an area between 410 and 660 kilometers beneath the Earth’s surface known as the “transition zone.”

Scientists have long been divided about what, exactly, is in the transition zone. We’ve known that much of the upper mantle is made up of olivine, and, as Keppler said, scientists have long thought that Earth contained reservoirs of water deep beneath the crust. But they weren’t sure whether the water existed as low as the transition zone—the area between the upper and lower mantles. While some say that much of the oceans’ water may have originated there, others have said it is likely completely dry.”

(Image credit: University of Alberta via VICE)

Pearson proposed 2 potential explanations for why water was found in the ringwoodite.

“In one, water within the ringwoodite reflects inheritance from a hydrous, diamond-forming fluid, from which the inclusion grew as a syngenetic phase. In this model, the hydrous fluid must originate locally, from the transition zone, because there is no evidence that the lower mantle contains a significant amount of water,” Pearson wrote. Basically that translates to, the intense pressure on chemicals at those depths can create H2O spontaneously.

“Alternatively, the ringwoodite is ‘protogenetic,’ that is, it was present before encapsulation by the diamond and its water content reflects that of the ambient transition zone. Both models implicate a transition zone that is at least locally water-rich,” he continued. That theory contends that the water and ringwoodite were already present, and the ringwoodite absorbs water.

In both theories, a ton of water is present in what they call the “transition zone.”

What if scientists working for the government have already tapped into vast reservoirs of water that most people are unaware of?

Could water ever be a scarcity on planet Earth if people find a way to access this vast, untapped resource?

There are certain keys people could use to unlock a better future: rare gems of discovery littered throughout a mess of science that isn’t really for the benefit of anyone but those wealthy enough to pour money into scientific research.

But if the common people play their cards right, they could create a paradise out of all the new discoveries, and turn the research funded by the wealthy on its head.

Image: 3D illustration showing layers of the Earth in space. cigdem/Shutterstock.