New revelations about the oceans of water near earth’s core. Did our planet’s surface water “come from within”?

Deep below the surface of the Earth, there is a huge reservoir of water and it is estimated to contain three times the amount of water compared to all the oceans we know, which brings a number of scientists to celebrate as it has been something they have been looking for for decades but lives a lot of data.

In 2014, a scientific team from the US used 2,000 seismometers to study seismic waves from more than 500 earthquakes, as reported by IFL Science.

By examining the speed of the waves at different depths, the scientific team was able to determine the type of rocks the waves passed through before reaching the sensors.

Then the researchers found that about 700 kilometers (435 miles) below our feet, in the so-called “transition zone” between the lower mantle and the upper mantle, there was a rock called Ringwoodite.

What is Ringwoodite?

It is pointed out that ringwoodite only forms under the intense pressure seen towards the center of our planet. Only one sample from Earth’s interior – also found in meteorites – has been discovered, trapped inside a tiny diamond. Also, ringwoodite contains water, not as a liquid, but trapped within the mineral’s molecular structure.

The geophysicist, Steve Jacobsen, in a related announcement from Northwestern University, has stated the following: “Ringwoodite is like a sponge, absorbing water. There is something very special about ringudite’s crystal structure that allows it to attract hydrogen and trap water. This mineral can contain a lot of water in deep mantle conditions.”

The search for the presence of water near the center of the Earth

Previous experiments have shown that ringudite can contain up to 1.5% water, and the seismic waves detected were consistent with the rock in question containing water.

The scientific team calculated that if only 1% of the rock in the so-called “transition zone” is water, this means that it contains three times more water than all the oceans on Earth’s surface. This, in fact, matched their results, which were published in June 2014 in Science.

“If there’s a significant amount of H₂O in the transition zone, then there should be some melting in areas where there is flow in the lower mantle, and that’s consistent with what we found,” said seismologist Brandon Schmandt.

However, Steve Jacobsen believes that the study contributes to the proof that the Earth’s water “came from within”, as he has argued in “New Scientist”.

In fact, he has emphasized the following: “I think we are finally seeing evidence for an Earth-wide water cycle that may help explain the vast amount of liquid water on the surface of our habitable planet. Scientists have been looking for this “lost water” for decades.