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There Might Be a Giant Underground Ocean Hiding Beneath Our Feet
New insights into the origin of Earth’s water supply
For many years, scientists and astronomers theorized that water came to Earth on the backs of large icy comets that bombarded the planet in the distant past. In the earliest days of the solar system, impacts from comets, meteors, and asteroids were common. Some people think that these impacts could have brought water from space to our rocky planet. After all, there are no signs of water anywhere else in the near vicinity of our solar neighborhood. As interesting as the water-from-space theory is, there is another theory that is just as interesting, if not more so.
New data continues to hone in on water that is lying deep beneath our feet. This is not water sitting in easily accessible aquafers. This is water that is lurking 250 miles beneath the surface. Some scientists have begun calling this underground water an ocean. But that doesn’t quite paint an accurate picture.
Water In The Mantle
The surface of the Earth is called the crust. Lying just below the crust is the mantle, which is a large morass of liquid rock and strange crystallized material. For the longest time, most people believed that water could only exist in and on the crust of the Earth. The…
