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Water Isolated for Over a Billion Years Found Under Ontario

ananyo writes "Scientists working 2.4 kilometers below Earth's surface in a Canadian mine have tapped a source of water that has remained isolated for at least a billion years. The researchers say they do not yet know whether anything has been living in it all this time, but the water contains high levels of methane and hydrogen — the right stuff to support life. Micrometer-scale pockets in minerals billions of years old can hold water that was trapped during the minerals' formation. But no source of free-flowing water passing through interconnected cracks or pores in Earth's crust has previously been shown to have stayed isolated for more than tens of millions of years (paper abstract)."

14 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. It is time by Sparticus789 · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you need me, I will be in my hermetically sealed Doomsday Bunker, just in case a vicious and contagious disease emerges.

    --
    sudo make me a sandwich
    1. Re:It is time by ArcadeMan · · Score: 5, Funny

      ...the LHC makes black holes. - Samantha Wright

    2. Re:It is time by kryliss · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's a bunch of crap, that water can't be any older than 6,000 years old!!!

      --
      --- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
    3. Re:It is time by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 5, Funny

      You are dead to me, ArcadeMan. Dead to me.

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  2. 3. Profit by Bosconian · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bottle it.
    Then sell it at $50 a pop with dubious claims about health benefits.

    "Billioneia Aquifer" - You can taste the years.

    --
    Scarce, scared, scarred, sacred... -Col. Bruce Hampton
    1. Re:3. Profit by EGenius007 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Pfft, you obviously need to sell the homeopathic version that's been diluted 10,000x to be even more effective.

      --
      I know what you did last summer. Just kidding, I don't work at the NSA.
  3. Nice try.... by krovisser · · Score: 4, Funny

    Where they there to see it trapped? Then how do they know!?

    1. Re:Nice try.... by Buggz · · Score: 3, Funny

      I still have to wait four minutes before I get to drink my freshly made coffee. Maybe it'll make the whoosh hurt less than the facepalm. :/

  4. In related news: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is said to have been disappointed with the find, but he is confident that continued efforts will eventually locate valuable stores of oil and coal ...

  5. Re:Ontario - Canada's fat, lazy province by StrangeBrew · · Score: 5, Funny

    Alberta isn't 'digging' for oil. We are slowly separating British Columbia from the mainland. This will accomplish two things: 1) Provide Alberta with it's own seaports. 2) Ensure those B.C. hippies are physically isolated from the rest of the country.

  6. Silurian reservoir by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Silurians are going to be pissed.

  7. The Andromeda, Strains Logic by neoshroom · · Score: 4, Funny

    Generally parasites co-evolve with their hosts. Because of this, it is actually fairly unlikely to unearth some vicious ancient virus from waters a billion years old. Billions of years ago all that existed was bacteria and the oldest viruses we know about go back only hundreds of millions of years.

    That said I fully endorse your Hermetic seal and wish you well in your initiating our flippered friends into the alchemic ways.

    --
    Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
  8. Still fizzy by Smivs · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is amazing. 1 billion year old mineral water and it's still fizzy!

  9. But does it... by Nidi62 · · Score: 4, Funny
    mix well with Scotch?

    You probably thought I was going to ask if it ran Linux, didn't you?

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil