This makes us think of a chapter in the novel "Traveling to the Center of the Earth," but finding out about the construction of an extremely rare gem made the researchers believe that there was an ocean beneath the surface. land hundreds of miles.
This rare stone, called ringwoodite, is made when olivine, a material commonly found under the crust, is compressed under great pressure; When exposed to a lower pressure environment, it becomes olivine. This stone was found in meteorite pieces as well as synthesized in the laboratory, but has until now been discovered in the Earth's core.
Graham Pearson, of the University of Alberta, who had a brownish, seemingly worthless 3mm piece of stone, was found in Mato Grosso, Brazil, when he was studying another mineral. Inside this piece of rock, he and his colleagues found ringwoodite - and they found 1.5% of the ringwoodite mass was water. They published the findings in the journal Nature.
The water must have a new way of entering it, and through analyzes of water depths and compositions, Pearson claims that there is water deep in the Earth - there is so much else.
This finding "confirms the conjecture from high-pressure experiments that there is a large water source across all terrestrial oceans hidden deep in the ground," according to a study based on findings by Hans. Keppler, University of Bayreuth, Germany.
Earth crust, including the deepest part of the sea, up to 100 km thick. Under the cover, the overlay is about 300 km thick. Between this layer and the mantle is where the ringwoodite piece is found - in a surface about 410 to 660 km below the earth's crust, also known as the "transition zone."
Scientists have long argued about what the "transfer zone" is exactly. We all know that the topcoat is made up of olivine, and, as Keppler says, scientists have long believed that Earth is also underground from the ground beneath the crust. But they are not sure whether water exists at this depth. While some claim that most of the sea water originates from this area, some believe there is no water at all.
The findings from Pearson change everything. In his report, he pointed out two theories for having water in ringwoodite.
"One theory is that the water inside the ringwoodite reflects the origin of a liquid capable of forming ice crystals. In this hypothesis, the liquid must have originated from the transfer site itself, as there is no evidence that the overlay has the right amount of water, "Pearson said. In short, the high pressure and geological structure at this depth create water."Or, the ringwoodite stone is like a pearl, it was there before being covered with crystal rock and the water component reflects the transfer environment." In this theory, water and ringwoodite are already available. that, and ringwoodite has absorbed some water. In a way, this means that there are many countries in the transfer area. "Both hypotheses indicate that this transfer region contains water."
So why is a piece of ringwoodite located 410 miles below the surface of the Earth in Brazil? According to Keppler - and Pearson's search for volcanic rock - suggesting that a geological phenomenon, possibly a volcanic eruption, brought the rock to the ground. Fortunately, Pearson was able to analyze it before it was turned down to its original form.
"This discovery would have been a fortune, like any other scientific discovery," Pearson said. We can dream a little and imagine an ocean beneath the ground where mysterious creatures exist.
