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Huge Reservoir Discovered Beneath Asia
anthemaniac writes "Seismic observations reveal a huge reservoir of water in Earth's mantle beneath Asia. It's actually rock saturated with water, but it's an ocean's worth of water ... as much as is in the whole Arctic Ocean. How did it get there? A slab of water-laden crust sank, and the water evaporated out when it was heated, and then it was trapped, the thinking goes. The discovery fits neatly with the region's heavy seismic activity and fits neatly with the idea that the planet's moving crustal plates are lubricated with water."
... after Noah's Flood! This proves the existence of God! Suck it, James Cameron!!!12!!
Be like the Earth: use water-based lubricants, kids.
There goes my astroglide tectonics theory! Back to the drawing board...
but a tall glass of Prune juice always gets that trapped "slab of water-laden crust" out just fine.
The discovery fits neatly with the region's heavy seismic activity and fits neatly with the idea that the planet's moving crustal plates are lubricated with water."
This may explain why Venus, a planet of similar size, appears to have a very different resurfacing mechanism. Venus's surface appears to "explode" once roughly every half-a-billion years, and then stay mellow until the next cycle. Thus, pressure probably builds up until a giant venusquake is eminant and kabam! Water on Earth appearently provides some lubrication such that the pressure is releived relatively gradually in comparison.
Table-ized A.I.
So TFA states that there is good chance of there being lots of water beneath the crust in Asia. Okay, so that's water cooler (whoops...no pun intended) material.
What would make it truly interesting (to non-seismologists) would be if that water were fresh (i.e. drinkable) and accessible (so it could be used as a drinking water supply).
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
First they got all the tea in China and now they got all the water too?
It's not fair!
I see your snarky comment and raise it one Interesting one.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
And they WILL use this. In a video about how the Grand Canyon was formed in the Flood, they interview a U.S.G.S. scientist and he says "During the miocene there was a huge lake in north eastern Arizona", without mentioning that the miocene ended 5 million years ago.
Its the sea of Valusia, of course...
No, couldn't still be down there from the moon-forming impact (we're talking ~4.5 *billion* years ago). It would have made the entire surface of the earth molten and evaporated any water that was already there. If you read the article it explains that this was probably produced by compaction and heating of an H2O-rich oceanic plate after it was subducted under the continental plate. Seems like a plausible explanation, no?
The discovery fits neatly ... with the idea that the planet's moving crustal plates are lubricated with water."
I'm a fan of the Abiogenic theory of oil. This theory holds that crude oil does NOT come from 'dinosaurs' and swamps, but from some other source in the Earth system. IANACG (crackpot geologist), but I think crude oil is just a part of the earth's carbon cycle. Carbon gets sequestered in the ocean (coral/etc), said carbon gets submerged into the mantle, and millions/billions of years later gets transformed into oil, through one mechanism or another. See the 'proposed mechanism' section of above-linked page for details.
Could this story's 'water' patch also be a patch of oil? Oil would lubricate the crust much better than water, I think.
In light of this overview, hydrocarbon economies are bad not because of Carbon Dioxide, but because we're draining our planet of its lubrication. This is probably a Bad Thing - I expect some major seismic activity in the next 50-1000 years.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
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Sorry.. That's a string bet. This isn't the wild west. You must make your wager in one continuous play.
The vast majority of sea life is VERY sensitive to the salinity of the water they live in. The sudden addition of fresh water would dilute the salt water to about 1/7 or 1/8 and would have either directly or indirectly killed all sea-life, completely destroying the only ecosystem left.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
If the only thing you need to kick ass was mineral wealth, Japan should have just thrown themselves upon a sword and given up from day 1. Japan has absolutely no mineral wealth, nor does Hong Kong. Taiwan is pretty sparse in mineral wealth as well. Plenty of African nations are up to their necks in valuable things you can dig out of the ground.
Mineral wealth is nice, but it is hardly a deal maker. China has some serious, crippling problems that is going to keep it from being the magical fairy tail land that people hope for. The demographic imbalances of China in the male to female ratio are horrifying and an invitation to civil strife. China's bureaucracy is corrupt and crippling to industry. China is very lucky it has 1.2 billion people running around it, because unlike the US, China's xenophobia does a handy job preventing it from doing a world wide brain drain as the US is so notorious for. China's government has its hands so far up the ass of its own economy that one incompetent move on the government could spell disaster for the entire nation's economy. We saw and example of this yesterday when the Chinese stock market dumped 10% of its value on a rumor that the government was about to do something dumb.
China has some very sever problems. True, China is a big growth engine right now, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that China was so desperately poor in the past. The Chinese government has done some things right in opening up their markets. They have also managed to keep law and order (which set them well ahead of most of Africa) which counts for a lot. That said, China has some very sever organizational problems with their government. Unless China commits to a real restructuring of their government, I really don't fear all that much for the US position of #1 in the world economy.
Hey, it gets my vote. Any situation where massive numbers of human deaths can be associated with the word "hilariously" twice in the same sentence, is a situation that I want to be a part of.
There's not a snowball's chance in hell they'll extract it. It's over 1000 kilometers down. To put that in perspective I think the deepest well ever drilled (Oil well in the North Sea IIRC) was 20kms deep - 2% of the distance. The depth for most oil and gas wells is between 3 and 5 kms and just getting that far takes some serious engineering and costs a fortune.
Unsurprisingly, there's not a lot of research into drilling wells deeper than that "oil and gas window". It's a pity though, the amount of heat energy in that water would be staggering.
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there
Erm... Call me crazy, but I think the story says that the floods DID destroy all life - except those animals on the ark, of course. Whether or not the story of Noah and the Ark on the whole agrees with science may be arguable, but your comment suggests that you've only researched one side.
Just because it can't be explained doesn't mean it isn't true. Science fits into reality... not the other way around.
The volume in the article doesnt match your math, but you're basically correct. Most natural sea water has a specific gravity of about 1.024-1.025. You can drop it as low as 1.009 without any real damage to fish, but invertebrates die pretty quickly if you do that (great way to treat saltwater fish for parasites, the lower SG of freshwater causes osmotic shock and they die).
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OK, that doesn't really change my point. If the ENTIRE worlds ecosystem was destroyed it would take some time to revive it (probably millions of years) if it wasn't beyond recovery. They were told to take enough food for the year on the arc, what did they eat when they stepped foot onto a completely world. it takes about 4 months for carrots to grow from seed (for example) that's a long time to go without food. When the water did "recede" there would be no fresh water anywhere anymore, plants don't grow well in salty soil and we don't do well drinking salt or "salty" water. If there were no fish left, where did the current ones come from? I don't believe Noah had any fish tanks on the ark.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Well, the US is pretty damn big and has a large population. In terms of raw power, the US is pretty damn hard to top. That said, there are some Eastern European nations like Estonia who are really toying around with some truly alternative forms of government. While I doubt Estonia is ever going to drop the US to its knees, it could very well wield the power of a nation like Japan... which is not bad for a little Eastern European country that is smaller then most US states.
The big countries that have the mass to match the US pound for pound really just don't have their shit together. Western European nations are in the process of shedding off more population then they can afford to dump due to low population growth and low immigration. Europe is going into a death phase and their social system is not changing to keep up with the shifting demographics. The leaders of EU see the problem and are trying to get their shit together, but the people of Europe really want nothing to do with it. Sadly, due to the EU's current structure it only takes one nation to throw the wrench into the gears of reform. I am deeply skeptical that the EU is going to pull itself together and deal with the challenges facing it.
China, India, and Russia while certainly having the man power to be rivals to the US, but really are too shackled with government control, bureaucracy, and corruption to ever hope to match the US in the next few decades. They are just too big and massive to change direction. Nothing short of a political revolution can fix these nations.
The Middle East is FAR too socially dysfunctional to even dream of matching the US. They will be lucky to make it through the next decade or two without suffering the collapse of multiple governments and a genocide or three.
Africa, while mostly screwed up, does have some bright spots of hope. They are very much behind the rest of the world, but so was Korea, Taiwan, and Japan for much of history. That said, they really have the deck stacked against them, and most of Africa is such a mess that they stand little chance of getting a toe hold in the world economy.
The only nation that can take down the US is the US. The US could very well find itself in a death cycle with unadaptive social programs like Western Europe under the right conditions. Some might argue that the US is inching its way in that direction, but at the pace it is going, it is going to be a long time before the US gets there.
Are you serious?
Oil wells go down ~7 miles tops.
Earthquakes' points of origin are much much deeper than that.
From the U.S. Geological Survey
FAQ - Earthquakes, Faults, Plate Tectonics, Earth Structure:
Q: Can we cause earthquakes? Is there any way to prevent earthquakes?
Short answer: Yes, as a result of fluid injection into wells. No
Common Myths about Earthquakes:
Can you prevent large earthquakes by making lots of small ones, or by "lubricating" the fault with water or another material?
Short answer: No & yes, but it would be a bad idea.
Soo.... we can cause earthquakes by injecting fluids into wells, but I've never heard that removing fluids from a well can cause an earthquake.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
OK, so if we accept that God flooded the entire world in a matter of days, why the heck can't you accept that He would just provide food as needed, or make all the sea animals survive because He wanted too? Essentially, if you accept one miracle, what's one more?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
"Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more."
Proverbs 31:6-7 (NIV)
I defy anyone to find a better passage to take out of context.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Actually, the mineral wealth is what allowed America to remain at the top as long as we have. Basically, we had low costs minerals. Transportation on copper, oil, and iron are expensive. But if you can transport just a short ways, then you lower your manufactuering costs a great deal. Some have pointed out Japan as being the powerhouse without mineral wealth, but they have pushed to have high quality goods. SK Took over the low end stuff and now is pushing into higher end products. That means that China has the low end (read crappy) products with very low quality. It is improving, but it will be decades before that happens. In the mean time, they now have assess to low costs mineral AND are trying to ship as much of other minerals to china as possible. Basically, they are trying to increase the costs for other manufactuers, namely USA, Japan, and EU. Smart on their part
But yeah, I agree that China has some MAJOR issues that will be coming at them. But the difference in sex is less of a problem for china. As you pointed out, that lots of single men tend to be agressive (think of the west or even of alaska). That can be hard on a society. But historically, nations have harnessed that into armies and invaded other nations. In particular, they do so to take a resource, such as an island, water, iron or copper. Of course, some just go after oil.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What's interesting is that that passage uses the Hebrew word "eretz", which gets translated as "earth" in all (English) translations I've seen. Now, "earth" in itself is a very generic term, and does not NECESSARILY mean "the planet Earth". And "eretz" could also be translated as "land", "country", "ground" etc.
So the choice is up to the translator, and if you have 2 millennia's worth of tradition (which was based on incomplete knowledge), it is quite hard to break free of the mould.
It is certainly possible that the Noah flood was a localized event, without invalidating the Scriptures (as seen in the original language).
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
Over the life of the Earth, it seems the water would slowly disappear into the crust as the ocean plates are subducted.
If it is in a steady state, where is the water coming back out?
No one seems to have mentioned the UK. In terms of size it's not that dissimilar with Estonia, but it has a track record of running most of the world.
I reckon that running the world is more about leadership than raw power, and we're finding that out the hard way at the moment.
We managed to suppress Britain for a long time after WW2 - hell, we even charged them for it, and they've only just finished paying that off. But they still punch above their weight internationally. If they were to get together with Canada, Australia and India - historical partners - that would be one heck of a power block; brains and brawn.
We might even return to the fold if the option was being subordinate to a China/Russia axis. I think we have learned that a constitutional monarch would be cheaper, more impressive, and less dangerous than a President!
This is reminiscent of an article I read about the deepest drilling endeavor ever put forth. While the scientists' educated guess was that the rock material would turn to basalt at around 3-4km in actuality they were confronted with metamorphic rock filled with water! According to the scientists the water might have formed out of O and H atoms "squeezed" out of the surrounding rock and having no way to escape - this would mean it would actually be drinkable water. Furthermore they found large amounts of hydrogen gas contained in the crust which could alleviate some of our energy concerns once we put more effort into hydrogen fuel cell research.
I wonder what else mother earth has in store for us considering we only scratched the surface - the drill hole went down to 12km while the earth's radius is more than 6000km..
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
One thing I found to be unusual, and possibly more worth examining, is how the areas illustrated in the article map are almost precisely the same shape as the major continents. See http://images.livescience.com/images/070228_beijin g_anom_02.jpg
Seems kinda weird, possibly a leftover effect from previous tectonic shifts?
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Almost all of Western Europe has either stagnant or shrinking populations. That isn't a sign of "too much" immigration. Western Europe's problem is that its social welfare system makes immigration a problem. Western Europe also struggles to assimilate immigration populations into their population. While it might be "too much" immigration for much of Western Europe's taste, it is certainly "too little" to keep Western Europe from developing some truly terrifying demographic problems that should be scaring the pants off of the citizens of these nations.
Just to save the mockers some time, I'll mention that I fully realize that the hydroplate theory:
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Of course, he could have also just saved all of the animals that he wanted saved. But it is soooo much more fun to screw with people, and convince them to build a big unnecessary boat, and sleep in cramped quarters with hundreds of thousands of animals (1,100 species of bats alone don't ya know?) for a year.
I had a boss once who gave people non-productive, frustrating tasks just to prove to everyone that he was in charge. If he had been immortal we might have called him Lord, but things being as they were, we just called him a dick.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
The article is misleading. It's not like there is a free body of water in the lower mantle. The water is carried there in hydrous minerals that dehydrate as they become unstable at the increased pressure/temperature of the lower mantle. That water, which was originally near the earth's surface, is then absorbed as new and different hydrous minerals form, ones that are stable in the lower mantle--like Mg-perovskite. One of interesting results of this research is the notion of water recycling on a whole earth scale, not just the upper few km.
Just FYI...I'm sure that's true for many people out there, but for myself, yes, of course there could be evidence to convince me that Jesus wasn't God. Partly that means that if some of the evidence we do have were different, I wouldn't believe. But as for the Cameron documentary--if the ossuary belonging to the guy named Jesus still had the bones in it, and those bones showed nail holes from crucifixion... Well, I would wait for verification the bones hadn't been tampered with, but there's fair chance I would no longer be a Christian after that. Combining the names with crucifixion would be a bit much.
I haven't seen the documentary or read the book yet, so I can only evaluate the statements they've made so far, but they've said some truly silly things, so I'm not expecting much from the documentary. (For example, Cameron claimed on the Today Show that a document called the Acts of Phillip "definitely identifies Mary Magdalene as Mariamne". Go look up the text online, it's linked from the Wikipedia article. It includes a woman named Mariamne, but it definitely doesn't identify her as Mary Magdalene. The word "Magdalene" doesn't even appear. The Mariamne in the story is the sister of Phillip, and she turns into a glass box full of light and fire when she's threatened. Some scholars think that she's Mary Magdalene, others identify her as Mary of Bethany...But it's all quite speculative.)
Here's an interesting theory along those lines. Synopsis: Glaciation ends, rivers stop feeding the Black Sea (which was the Black Freshwater Lake at the time), evaporation and rising sea levels put it well below sea level. Waters in the Mediterranean overflow the Bosporus. Ten cubic miles of water flow into the Black Sea per day for at least three hundred days.
So we have a huge flood, in the right part of the world, at around the right time for the ancestors of the Jewish people to remember it and write about it in the old testament. And a possible reason Deluge mythology is so universal. A waterfall two hundred times the size of Niagra Falls flooding 60,000 square miles of previously settled land might be something you'd tell your grandkids about.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I think global warming is a real problem. I think it's probably caused by humans.
The problem? I also think Al Gore is a pompous ass and his movie was the most boring piece of shit I've ever seen. By the end, I was rooting for global warming, on the theory that it might kill Al Gore. So, does that mean I'm crazy?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
How exactly do you cover "all the high mountains" and not cover the entire earth?
If, in fact, a hill or mountain, etc keeps the water from spilling over onto another area of land, then in fact not all the high mountains have been covered. In other words, everything would have had to be covered in order to qualify, thus the context puts the word "eretz" as translating to the largest, most vast sense of the word, making it a globalized event.
For reference, here's an alternative translation. I am not familiar with how accurate the translation is - but it is an alternative to the 'norm'. Someone who can understand hebrew could verify how literal it is. Since it is from 1898, it seems to have withstood the 'test of time'.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Interesting. The second translation is a relatively accurate translation (I referenced the on-line linear translation at http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0107.htm to compare the original hebrew (and their translation), to the second one you referenced.
You're right about the idea that the flood is described as "And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered." (Genesis 7:19)
I will add however that the previous poster is also right that the word used in the original hebrew to describe what is covered is Eretz, which is usually translated as "Land" (for instance "Eretz Yisroel" i.e. "the Land of Israel). The verse COULD be interpreted as referring to the land, literally the ground/earth, I could see the extension to translating that as "the Earth" (capital "E"), however the idea of it being tied to a relatively localized event does not seem in contradiction to the original text.
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