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Huge Ocean Discovered Inside Earth

thedude110

thedude110

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 13, 2005
2,478
2
Link.

Am I the only who's entirely paranoid about this? Like I'm going to walk across Asia one day and like, drown in an ocean nobody can even see?

Or that there are giant, futuristic lampreys down there like, waiting to kill us all?

Look. There's four oceans. And nine planets. Stop messing with my science.

God I dislike change.

And water.
 
This article makes my head hurt!! This is why I am in the humanities and not sciences.

So let me see if I get this: the bottom of the ocean is rock which contains water in its pores. The rock sinks into the mantle (which I believe is molten?) and then the mantle magma heats the rock so that the water evaporates and saturates in the upper layers of the mantle forming an ocean under the rock floor of the ocean.

Is that right?

The one thing I don't get is that the scientist said the water would still look like rock. Why would it look like rock if it separated from the rock? Unless they are implying the water simply floated back up and rejoined with the ocean floor? In which case how is it different than the ocean-floor water infused rock to begin with? Unless there's an unsaturated layer in between?

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:
 
interesting, but where can we pit our banana louges and beach umbrellas? It doesn't sound like there is much space down there for a beach party? And what about the surf? Are there any waves?

Seriously, here we are spending billions sending little rockets and stuff all about the universe and it looks like we really don't know our own home planet as well as we thought.
 
Nothing to see here folks, move along. :)

First of all, the water is locked into the rock and isn't free flowing:
linked article said:
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.”
Click to expand...
That's like calling a cement slab a "pool" before it's completely cured, or a concrete road a "river of water" soon after it's poured - hyperbole.

It's a cool find, but calling it "an ocean of water" is a bit much. Is a salt mine "a dangerous and toxic vat of chlorine"? No. This is "a bunch of water saturated rock".

Also, if you read the article and look at the linked image (click to enlarge) and caption, you'll note a similar amount of water under the much of the US. Does this mean Arizona is floating on a tropical sea? Er, no. :)

070228_beijing_anom_02.jpg​
Scientists probing the Earth's interior have found a large reservoir of water equal to the volume of the Arctic Ocean beneath eastern Asia. The left figure is a slice through the Earth, taken from the figure on the right, showing the attenuation anomalies within the mantle at a depth of roughly 620 miles. In both images, red shows unusually soft and weak rock believed to be saturated with water, and the blue shows unusually stiff rock (yellow and white show near-average values). Credit: Eric Chou​
 
I was just reading a little book about the inside of the earth today. I find this sort of thing fascinating. Just a huge cave fan. Pity I'm absolutely claustrophobic!
 
water in the earth

ok folks, forget about 'water' as you know it, also forget about lakes, caves etc etc of water within the earth. what people are discussing here is rock: solid strong hot rock, with a tiny bit of water or OH within the minerals that compose the rock. Ok, if you talk about very large volumes of rock, then even a tiny bit of this 'water' adds up to sizable volumes: but that's just a calculation, not physical reality.
 
jsw said:
<comforting smart stuff>

Also, if you read the article and look at the linked image (click to enlarge) and caption, you'll note a similar amount of water under the much of the US.
Click to expand...

The structure of your argument makes me question your intent.

*grabs shovel and large sponge. looks up flights to Arizona*
 
thedude110 said:
The structure of your argument makes me question your intent.
Click to expand...
Sorry to be unclear. All I meant was that an earthquake in the southern US would likely open a fissure to the water-laden rock below and create a giant inland sea, so anyone living there should keep a pontoon boat on their roof and have a quick means of getting to it.

That's all. Nothing major.

*** invests in pontoon boat manufacturer stock ***
 
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