Atlantis Online
March 28, 2024, 11:42:37 pm
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Did Humans Colonize the World by Boat?
Research suggests our ancestors traveled the oceans 70,000 years ago
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jun/20-did-humans-colonize-the-world-by-boat
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

Huge 'Ocean' Discovered Inside Earth

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: Huge 'Ocean' Discovered Inside Earth  (Read 47 times)
0 Members and 3 Guests are viewing this topic.
Alexander
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 3212



« on: March 03, 2007, 05:03:34 am »

Huge 'Ocean' Discovered Inside Earth Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com
Fri Mar 2, 3:05 PM ET
 


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 State 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.”

Hole Drilled to Bottom of Earth's Crust
Earth's Core Rotates Faster than Surface, Study Confirms
Giant Slab of Earth's Crust Found Near Core
Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth

 

Original Story: Huge 'Ocean' Discovered Inside Earth
Visit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. LiveScience reports amazing, real world breakthroughs, made simple and stimulating for people on the go. Check out our collection of Science, Animal and Dinosaur Pictures, Science Videos, Hot Topics, Trivia, Top 10s, Voting, Amazing Images, Reader Favorites, and more. Get cool gadgets at the new LiveScience Store, sign up for our free daily email newsletter and check out our RSS feeds today!

http://www.livescience.com/environment/070228_beijing_anomoly.html


Report Spam   Logged

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter



Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy