Geochemists from Russia, but also France and Germany, found at a depth of 410-660 kilometers beneath the surface of the Earth the ocean the Archean period (age 2.7 billion years), the volume of which exceeds the size of the World ocean. Research scientists published in the journal Nature.
A huge body of water is located under the earth’s crust and formed in ancient times under the conditions of high pressures and temperatures (1530 ° C). The water is enclosed in the crystalline structure of minerals. To such conclusions scientists have come, having analysed samples of solidified lava flows.
The minerals found in the territory of Canada and represent melts of komatiite captured by olivine. Analysis of the samples (the relative share of contained water and cerium), surviving almost unchanged from ancient times, allowed the scientists to estimate the water reserves under the Earth’s surface.
Previously, scientists suspected the existence of an underground ocean, however, the conducted study allowed to estimate the size and thus to assert the existence of a vast subsurface ocean. Most likely, the underground pond at the initial stages of the planet.
In the above article were attended by Russian scientists Alexander Sobolev (first author), Eugene Asaph, Valentina Batanova, Maxim Portnyagin and Stepan Krashenninikov from the Institute of Geochemistry and analytical chemistry named after Vladimir Vernadsky, Russian Academy of Sciences (GEOKHI RAS). Sobolev and Batanova (together with Nicholas Arndt) also have affiliation at the University of Grenoble (France), Pontryagin — GEOMAR (Germany), and Dieter Garbe-schönberg — at the University of Kiel (Germany).
