Get ready to be amazed by the latest scientific discovery: 700 kilometers below the top of the Earth, a huge ocean is hidden beneath the crust. This amazing finding makes us question everything we thought we knew about where water on Earth came from.
A group of researchers from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, found this hidden ocean. It is inside a mineral called ringwoodite and is three times bigger than all the surface seas put together.
Scientists made this amazing discovery while trying to figure out where Earth’s water came from. It sheds new light on the planet’s natural mysteries. Instead of coming from comet impacts, as was thought before, this new information shows that Earth’s oceans may have slowly leaked out from its center.
Steven Jacobsen, a very important member of the study team, says that the ringwoodite is like a “sponge” because it can hold water deep inside the Earth. This reserve goes against common beliefs and gives us interesting new information about the water cycle on Earth.
Using a network of 2000 seismographs across the United States, researchers looked at seismic waves from more than 500 events to find this hidden ocean. Seismic waves moving through hydrated rock slow down, which shows that there is water in the Earth’s mantle. This is physical proof of the huge underground water store.
This finding has effects that go far beyond scientific interest. Without this hidden water source, the Earth’s surface would look very different, and mountain tops might be the only landforms that could be seen.
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Not only does this discovery amaze us with its size, but it also gives us a new way to think about Earth’s water cycle, which changes how we understand one of the most basic processes on our world.
As long as experts keep collecting seismic data from all over the world, we may soon know how big this underground ocean is and how it affects the ecosystems on Earth. As we dig deeper into the wonders of our planet’s deepest parts, we’ll find secrets that have been locked away for millions of years.