Water is vital for life here on Earth. All life on Earth use water in one way or the other, and a loss of this resource would endanger all life as we know it. With global warming going on, it is important to find more sources of water. There is hope, as there might be more water deep within the Earth for people to explore.
A research reveals that a mineral might be the key to knowing how much water is deep within the Earth. The mineral being looked into is brucite. The mineral has been thought by scientists to be not stable enough to exist beneath the Earth's surface, though the new study is showing otherwise.
Mainak Mookherjee, assistant professor of Geology at Florida State University together with Andreas Hermann from the University of Edinburgh says that water is kept in minerals such as brucite through high-pressure polymorph. This means that water could be stored deep within the Earth without the mineral experiencing decomposition.
Scientists have long thought that minerals in the Earth can't be stable. They would decompose, and then the water would be recycled back to the Earth's surface through volcanic activity, according to Florida State University News. The new study shows that this might not be so, and that water can exist deep within the Earth.
Hermann said that they had to do quantum-mechanical calculations until they were able to find brucite to be the likely mineral to hold much water. Mookherjee added that the next challenge would be to know how much water could be stored underneath the Earth. This could be vital as an additional source of water later on.
Not only is water important for life, but it is also just as important for geologic activity beneath the Earth, as Science Daily reports. Mookerhjee stated that if water deep in the Earth is gone, geologic activity would also cease. The two scientists plan to have more research about the possibility of having more water beneath the Earth's surface. This is critical, as there might be more water deep within the Earth for people to explore. The research is also critical as the ocean is getting highly acidic.
