Inner Earth May Hold More Water Than the Seas

Inner Earth May Hold More Water Than the Seas Molten rocks deep in the earth’s interior may be surprisingly wet, Japanese researchers say. From lab experiments, they have concluded there may be more H2O deep under than in all oceans, lakes and rivers combined. The scientists first heated “mineral cocktails” to a white-hot 2,900 degrees and squeezed them until the pressure reached more than 3,000,000 pounds per square inch. Then they cooked the samples for …

…of Earth’s interior, which they did by studying the nature of the chemical reactions in their tabletop mini-mantle, which showed that the lower mantle has a lot of water, they reported March 8 in the journal Science. No one is ever likely to get a direct sample of material from the fiery mantle itself. But by simulating mantle-like conditions in the lab, Murakami and his colleagues have demonstrated that a water-rich inner Earth is plausible.