• 2 Billion Year Old Water Found
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[QUOTE=kaskade700;51541257]I just googled a bit and given that entire continents have come and gone since 2 billion fucking years ago I dare say that I have a hard time imagining some pocket or water hasn't interacted with any other water over the span of 2 billion fucking years. [img]http://i.imgur.com/YAWERAK.gif[/img][img]http://i.imgur.com/as00j0p.gif[/img] This is earth now and 750 million years ago. Look at all those displaced landmasses, I don't believe that any body of water could remain pure for just that period so 2 billion years are definitely hard to believe. All the clever water scientist are saying is that they have found a brand new kind of water giving them readings they have never seen before, which is cool and all but given that we can barely map out the properties of water as a substance I find it hard to believe we can reliably establish the age of a vault of water, let alone that far back.[/QUOTE] The "clever water scientists" can probably spend 5 minutes in google as well and they probably already knew about the displacement of landmass in the first place
[QUOTE=Headhumpy;51542476][URL="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7449/full/nature12127.html"]This[/URL] is how they dated the samples. The rocks that the samples were found in are themselves 2.7 billion years old, so it's hardly unimaginable that the water trapped in them could be billions of years old. They measured the ratios of various isotopes in the water and determined that the water has not interacted with the surface for 1.5 billion years (or 2 billion years in the latest example). I don't fully understand it myself, but I trust that the people with degrees and doctorates on the topic do, and that they know what they're doing. It's a bit embarrassing to see people with absolutely no knowledge on the topic come and cast doubt on the findings of people who have spent literal decades studying it.[/QUOTE] That implies we've found such body of liquid before thats this old and it still doesn't answer the question whether or not the water was pooled into the area over time and just mixed in with drops of old water or not.
[QUOTE=Headhumpy;51542476]It's a bit embarrassing to see people with absolutely no knowledge on the topic come and cast doubt on the findings of people who have spent literal decades studying it.[/QUOTE] I'm quite embarrased over the fact that i'm not allowed to voice my opinion about this and how people jumped down on my throat like rabid dogs, throwing accusations like i'm a flat-earth believer, which i'm not. That's just them being incredible retarded. The reason i doubted this is because the layers of earth hasn't been standing still these last 2 billion years, so i find it hard to believe that they found a perfect pocket of water that has pooled up and stayed that way during 2 billion years. And don't forget the meteors that has been impacting earth during that time. I don't doubt that the water is old but i don't believe it's [b]that[/b] old.
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[QUOTE=elevate;51543361]Calling people retarded? Did you learn anything from your flaming ban? I have no problem with your opinion and I'm willing to remove this post if you change yours, but come on.[/QUOTE] I say it as it is. Those people clearly had a problem with my opinion and had no qualms about openly flame and ridicule me. *And i change a word in my post above, since Headhumpy just stated how things were and i did not want to offend him, sorry bout that Headhumpy*
[QUOTE=Map in a box;51543189]That implies we've found such body of liquid before thats this old and it still doesn't answer the question whether or not the water was pooled into the area over time and just mixed in with drops of old water or not.[/QUOTE] We know that the isotopic ratio of certain elements in the Earth's atmosphere (Xe in particular) has changed over the course of Earth's history, because we have measured them in rocks that can be dated using other validated methods. If we find similar isotopic signatures in the water, then we can say that the water is at least that old as well. The exact age of the trapped water is necessarily fuzzy because we don't fully understand all of the processes affecting the isotopic ratios, but what we can say is that it is very old indeed, more than a billion years at least. To answer your question on whether it was "pooled into the area over time and just mixed in with drops of old water or not", the data suggests that the water was trapped at least 1.5 billion years ago and has not interacted with the Earth's atmosphere, or water from the surface, since. [QUOTE=EskillV2;51543350]I'm quite embarrased over the fact that i'm not allowed to voice my opinion about this and how people jumped down on my throat like rabid dogs, throwing accusations like i'm a flat-earth believer, which i'm not. That's just them being incredible retarded. The reason i doubted this is because the layers of earth hasn't been standing still these last 2 billion years, so i find it hard to believe that they found a perfect pocket of water that has pooled up and stayed that way during 2 billion years. And don't forget the meteors that has been impacting earth during that time. I don't doubt that the water is old but i don't believe it's [B]that[/B] old.[/QUOTE] You're allowed to voice your opinion, but everyone else is also allowed to call your opinion uneducated if it is. Just because you don't believe something doesn't make it untrue: plenty of people found it hard to believe that the Earth revolved around the Sun rather than the other way around. We know that rocks can and have survived for ~3.8 billion years with little to no metamorphic processes acting on them. It's not that much of a stretch to imagine that pockets of water trapped in those rocks could do the same.
[QUOTE=Headhumpy;51543546]We know that the isotopic ratio of certain elements in the Earth's atmosphere (Xe in particular) has changed over the course of Earth's history, because we have measured them in rocks that can be dated using other validated methods. If we find similar isotopic signatures in the water, then we can say that the water is at least that old as well. The exact age of the trapped water is necessarily fuzzy because we don't fully understand all of the processes affecting the isotopic ratios, but what we can say is that it is very old indeed, more than a billion years at least. To answer your question on whether it was "pooled into the area over time and just mixed in with drops of old water or not", the data suggests that the water was trapped at least 1.5 billion years ago and has not interacted with the Earth's atmosphere, or water from the surface, since. [/quote] I don't like how definitive of a number they seem to have given, I want a margin of error tbh
[QUOTE=Map in a box;51543622]I don't like how definitive of a number they seem to have given, I want a margin of error tbh[/QUOTE] This current announcement comes from a presentation at a conference and the paper hasn't come out yet, but the paper I linked earlier gives the age of the water as between 1.5-2.64 billion years (2.64 billion years ago being the last recorded geological activity at the site and thus the maximum bound).
The nature link you posted is pay-walled. I found a free link to the original article: [URL="http://hoffman.cm.utexas.edu/courses/nature_deep_subsurface_water.pdf"]http://hoffman.cm.utexas.edu/courses/nature_deep_subsurface_water.pdf[/URL]
I don't post free links to paywalled articles because that could count as warez. There are very easy ways to get access to journal articles nowadays anyway.
[QUOTE=EskillV2;51543350] The reason i doubted this is because the layers of earth hasn't been standing still these last 2 billion years, so i find it hard to believe that they found a perfect pocket of water that has pooled up and stayed that way during 2 billion years. And don't forget the meteors that has been impacting earth during that time. I don't doubt that the water is old but i don't believe it's [b]that[/b] old.[/QUOTE] The centers of old continental crustal blocks, known as [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craton"]cratons[/URL], are very stable and have experienced relatively little deformation. It's usually only the outer edges of continents that are deformed by tectonic activity. The mine this water was found in is located in the Canadian Shield, one of the oldest cratons. The water is contained in a network of fractures in the rock, not in a giant underground lake like one might imagine. I'm not sure what effect, if any, meteoric impacts would have on the purity of the water. As far as I know, the cratonic crust mostly hasn't been perceptibly deformed or fractured by impacts.
[QUOTE=En_Carlson;51543712]The nature link you posted is pay-walled. I found a free link to the original article: [URL]http://hoffman.cm.utexas.edu/courses/nature_deep_subsurface_water.pdf[/URL][/QUOTE] So it's small amounts water trapped within minerals trapped within rocks of all kinds of minerals? Then why are they sampling water on the floor of the cave in the pictures instead of carving out rocks ?
[QUOTE=kaskade700;51543968]So it's small amounts water trapped within minerals trapped within rocks of all kinds of minerals? Then why are they sampling water on the floor of the cave in the pictures instead of carving out rocks ?[/QUOTE] The water was literally gushing out of the rocks when they drilled the borehole. Look at the link I posted earlier, the supplementary information is free and contains two videos documenting how they collected the sample. They're sampling the water because it's interesting to note that such large bodies of water could persist in a primordial state in rock formations.
[QUOTE=kaskade700;51543968]So it's small amounts water trapped within minerals trapped within rocks of all kinds of minerals? Then why are they sampling water on the floor of the cave in the pictures instead of carving out rocks ?[/QUOTE] They mention fluid inclusions in the abstract as another place where ancient water can be found, but here they are actually sampling water flowing out of a bore-hole. [QUOTE] [B]Sample collection.[/B] samples were collected at the borehole collar... Plastic tubing was attached to the end of the packer and the flow of gas and/or water from the borehole was directed into a graduated sampling bucket. Temperature, pH and conductivity were measured on the outflowing water from the packer by respective field kits... [/QUOTE]
I don't have a problem with believing this at all. There are geologically inactive zones (not 100% inactive, but incredibly slow and weak) all around the globe. That a pocket was created long ago that isolated a bunch of water or ice or whatever doesn't sound that strange to me. Cool find.
[QUOTE=EskillV2;51538428]Think about it, it must've been dried out and replenished at some point or had some sort of cycle. I'd say there's a snowballs chance in hell that the water kept perfect balance with moisture and humidity for billion of years. But then again, mother nature loves to suprise us from time to time. When i say '[url=http://www.dictionary.com/browse/doubt]doubt[/url]', i dont mean that i know better than the actual scientists. I just doubt that the water is that old.[/QUOTE] Do you understand what a half life is and how matter decay works at all? No? Then you don't understand what you're talking about and you ought to learn about it. Was the water actually water for that long? Who knows, but by measuring the decay of the isotopes of hydrogen molecules in the water, they can gauge the material's age.
eskill why make water opinions when you're not qualified. volvic is best anyway.
It's about time we had powdered water.
[QUOTE=AK'z;51544942]eskill why make water opinions when you're not qualified. volvic is best anyway.[/QUOTE] Why make opinions at all when everyone get so worked up about it Mountain-stream water is the best.
[QUOTE=En_Carlson;51543712]The nature link you posted is pay-walled. I found a free link to the original article: [URL="http://hoffman.cm.utexas.edu/courses/nature_deep_subsurface_water.pdf"]http://hoffman.cm.utexas.edu/courses/nature_deep_subsurface_water.pdf[/URL][/QUOTE] I'm convinced. A bit of a Sensationalist Headline, but there's definitely been worse.
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