It seems like amazing science stories are popping up every day lately, all of which blow our tiny minds.
First, there was the discovery of a terrifying black hole that points our way, then the discovery of a giant hole in the Sun, and the discovery of a lost continent after being missing for 375 years.
Now, people are just realizing that there is a huge ocean hidden beneath the earth’s crust.
It turns out that there is a vast supply of water 400 miles underground, stored in a rock known as ‘ringwoodite’.
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Scientists previously discovered that water is stored inside the mantle rock in a sponge-like state, which is not a liquid, solid or gas, but rather a fourth state.
scientific paper A paper titled ‘Dehydration Melting at the Lower Mantle’ was published in 2014 and highlighted the findings.
There is three times more water under the surface than in the oceaniStock
“Ringwoodite is like a sponge, soaking up water, there’s something special about ringwoodite’s crystal structure that allows it to attract hydrogen and trap water,” geophysicist Steve Jacobsen said at the time.
“This mineral can hold a lot of water in deep mantle conditions,” added Jacobsen, who was part of the team behind the discovery.
He added: “I think we are finally seeing evidence of a whole-Earth water cycle, which could help explain the vast amount of liquid water on the surface of our habitable planet. Scientists have been looking for this missing deep water for decades.”
After scientists studied earthquakes and discovered that seismometers were picking up shockwaves below the Earth’s surface.
From this, they were able to establish that water was being held in a rock known as ringwoodite.
If the rock contained only 1 percent water, it would mean that there was three times as much water under the surface of the Earth as there was on the surface of the ocean.
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