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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."

28 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. So THAT's where all the water went by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... after Noah's Flood! This proves the existence of God! Suck it, James Cameron!!!12!!

    1. Re:So THAT's where all the water went by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 3, Funny

      These are certainly interesting times. The Arabs had "our" oil, and now it turns out the Chinese have "our" water in their mantle. Expect to see a lot of cheap knock-off water hitting the market soon.

      in order to really prove that there was a global flood, you would need to produce the Mexicans that built the Arc

      I thought the Ark maintenance guys had decided by Genesis 8:20 that the whole thing was made in China, and not a Noah original with Mexican hired laborers. It carried two of every shipping container, one for the male and one for the female of each species, plus piles of inexpensive cheap shirts, sweaters, pants, ties, coffee mugs, pillows, socks, cordless drills, cheap carbon-zinc batteries, and phones, all wrapped in those annoying plastic bags. You know how to spot an Ark that's a cheap Chinese knockoff? When the Ark is empty it displaces more water than a genuine Noah's Ark. Also, the termites and the woodpeckers can tell you. God made them so they just know.

      As to proving the existence of a god, in whatever form you want, that's an exercise best left to the reader.

      If there were no God, someone would surely manufacture a convincing knock-off of Him.

  2. be like the Earth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    the planet's moving crustal plates are lubricated with water.



    Be like the Earth: use water-based lubricants, kids.

  3. dammit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    There goes my astroglide tectonics theory! Back to the drawing board...

  4. I get the same thing once in a while.... by blankoboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    but a tall glass of Prune juice always gets that trapped "slab of water-laden crust" out just fine.

  5. Venus by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Venus by ZorbaTHut · · Score: 5, Insightful

      From the linked article:
      Scientists have very few answers, but they do know that the impact of a Yellowstone eruption is terrifying to comprehend. Huge areas of the USA would be destroyed, the US economy would probably collapse, and thousands might die.

      Thousands . . . might? In that situation I'd say "hundreds of thousands will" is far, far more likely.

      They're either hilariously overexaggerating the first part or hilariously underexaggerating the second.

      --
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    2. Re:Venus by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's hard to say, though it does seem like an incredibly lowball estimate. Still, a major disaster that hits the US doesn't seem to cause anywhere near the same level of fatalities as it does in other areas, though a heck of a lot of damage is done.

      I would have thought that a Yellowstone eruption was going to wipe out a few states, and pretty much anyone in them. The ash makes helicopter operation practically imposible and hot chunks of rubble will just sear through tires, leaving not much to evacuate with, assuming that the CO2 and sulfur emissions don't choke.

  6. Usefulness? by RealGrouchy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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>

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  7. Water based lubricants versus oil based lubricants by andy314159pi · · Score: 4, Funny

    planet's moving crustal plates are lubricated with water.
    The planet's crusts used to lubricate with oil based lubricants until it got the memo to switch to water based lubricants.
  8. It's not fair! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    First they got all the tea in China and now they got all the water too?
    It's not fair!

  9. Re:So THAT's where the flood water CAME FROM by rjamestaylor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Genesis 7:11-12
    In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.

    I see your snarky comment and raise it one Interesting one.
    --
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  10. Sorry by encoderer · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sorry.. That's a string bet. This isn't the wild west. You must make your wager in one continuous play.

  11. Re:So THAT's where the flood water CAME FROM by Brad1138 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
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  12. Re:Combine that with the recent minerals by Shihar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  13. Re:China... by Timbotronic · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

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  14. Re:So THAT's where the flood water CAME FROM by Crazyscottie · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

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  15. Re:So THAT's where the flood water CAME FROM by b0r1s · · Score: 5, Informative

    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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  16. Re:So THAT's where the flood water CAME FROM by Brad1138 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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
  17. Re:Combine that with the recent minerals by Shihar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  18. Re:difference between oil & water on seismogra by TubeSteak · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
    Draining our planet of lubrication?
    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.
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  19. Re:So THAT's where the flood water CAME FROM by Phroggy · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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.

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  20. Re:Combine that with the recent minerals by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

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  21. Re:So THAT's where the flood water CAME FROM by codeButcher · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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).

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  22. Why is there still water on the surface? by bremstrong · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

  23. Re:the creationsists will say... by JeanPaulBob · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.)

  24. Black Sea Deluge Theory by spun · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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