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Author Topic: ancient water  (Read 1046 times)

space otter

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ancient water
« on: December 24, 2014, 12:12:52 pm »

when I read  this I thought of all the stories about  old.. old.. older civilizations going underground




http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141217141127.htm


Ancient, hydrogen-rich waters deep underground around the world: Waters could support isolated life



December 17, 2014
Source:   University of Toronto

Summary:
A team of scientists has mapped the location of hydrogen-rich waters found trapped kilometers beneath Earth's surface in rock fractures in Canada, South Africa and Scandinavia. Common in Precambrian Shield rocks -- the oldest rocks on Earth -- the ancient waters have a chemistry similar to that found near deep sea vents, suggesting these waters can support microbes living in isolation from the surface.



A team of scientists, led by the University of Toronto's Barbara Sherwood Lollar, has mapped the location of hydrogen-rich waters found trapped kilometres beneath Earth's surface in rock fractures in Canada, South Africa and Scandinavia.


Common in Precambrian Shield rocks -- the oldest rocks on Earth -- the ancient waters have a chemistry similar to that found near deep sea vents, suggesting these waters can support microbes living in isolation from the surface.

The study, to be published in Nature on December 18, includes data from 19 different mine sites that were explored by Sherwood Lollar, a geoscientist at U of T's Department of Earth Sciences, U of T senior research associate Georges Lacrampe-Couloume, and colleagues at Oxford and Princeton universities.

The scientists also explain how two chemical reactions combine to produce substantial quantities of hydrogen, doubling estimates of global production from these processes which had previously been based only on hydrogen coming out of the ocean floor.

"This represents a quantum change in our understanding of the total volume of Earth's crust that may be habitable," said Sherwood Lollar.

"Until now, none of the estimates of global hydrogen production sustaining deep microbial populations had included a contribution from the ancient continents. Since Precambrian rocks make up more than 70 per cent of the surface of Earth's crust, Sherwood Lollar likens these terrains to a "sleeping giant," a huge area that has now been discovered to be a source of possible energy for life," she said.

One process, known as radiolytic decomposition of water, involves water undergoing a breakdown into hydrogen when exposed to radiation. The other is a chemical reaction called serpentization, a mineral alteration reaction that is common in such ancient rocks.

This study has important implications for the search for deep microbial life. Quantifying the global hydrogen budget is key to understanding the amount of Earth's biomass that is in the subsurface, as many deep ecosystems contain chemolithotrophic -- so-called "rock-eating" -- organisms that consume hydrogen. In the deep gold mines of South Africa, and under the sea, at hydrothermal vents where breaks in the fissure of Earth's surface that release geothermally heated waters -- hydrogen-rich fluids host complex microbial communities that are nurtured by the chemicals dissolved in the fluids. This study identifies a global network of sites with hydrogen-rich waters that will be targeted for exploration for deep life over the coming years.

Further, because Mars -- like the Precambrian crust -- consists of billions-of-year-old rocks with hydrogen-producing potential, this finding has ramifications for astrobiology. "If the ancient rocks of Earth are producing this much hydrogen, it may be that similar processes are taking place on Mars," said Sherwood Lollar.

Other key members of the research team are Chris Ballentine of Oxford University, Tulis Onstott at Princeton University and Georges Lacrampe-Couloume of the University of Toronto. The research was funded by the Canada Research Chairs program, the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council, the Sloan Foundation Deep Carbon Observatory, the Canadian Space Agency and the National Science Foundation.




Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by University of Toronto. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.



Journal Reference:
1.Barbara Sherwood Lollar, T. C. Onstott, G. Lacrampe-Couloume, C. J. Ballentine. The contribution of the Precambrian continental lithosphere to global H2 production. Nature, 2014; 516 (7531): 379 DOI: 10.1038/nature14017



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University of Toronto. "Ancient, hydrogen-rich waters deep underground around the world: Waters could support isolated life." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 17 December 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141217141127.htm>.


since  there was the share notation  with a list of ways  to send it  - I felt safe posting the entire article



......................................



http://www.livescience.com/32028-oldest-water-found-underground.html


Oldest Water on Earth Found Deep Underground

Charles Q. Choi, OurAmazingPlanet Contributor   |   May 15, 2013 01:00pm ET


A pocket of water some 2.6 billion years old — the most ancient pocket of water known by far, older even than the dawn of multicellular life — has now been discovered in a mine 2 miles below the Earth's surface.

The finding, announced in the May 16 issue of the journal Nature, raises the tantalizing possibility that ancient life might be found deep underground not only within Earth, but in similar oases that may exist on Mars, the scientists who studied the water said.

Geoscientist Barbara Sherwood Lollar at the University of Toronto and her colleagues have investigated deep mines across the world since the 1980s. Water can flow into fractures in rocks and become isolated deep in the crust for many years, serving as a time capsule of what their environments were like at the time they were sealed off.

In gold mines in South Africa 1.7 miles (2.8 kilometers) deep, the scientists previously discovered microbes could survive in pockets of water isolated for tens of millions of years. These reservoirs were many times saltier than seawater, "and had chemistry in many ways similar to hydrothermal vents on the bottom of the ocean, full of dissolved hydrogen and other chemicals capable of supporting life," Sherwood Lollar said. [Strangest Places Where Life Is Found on Earth]

To see what other ancient pockets of water might exist, Sherwood Lollar and her colleagues investigated copper and zinc mines near the city of Timmins in Ontario, Canada. "As the prices of copper, zinc and gold have gone up, mines now go deeper, which has helped our search for long-isolated reservoirs of water hidden underground," Sherwood Lollar said.

'Mind-blowing' find

"Sometimes we went down in cages — they're not called elevators underground — that dropped us to the levels we wanted to go," Sherwood Lollar told OurAmazingPlanet. "Other times, we went down ramp mines, which have curling spiral roadways, so we could actually drive all the way down."

The scientists analyzed water they found 2 miles (2.4 km) deep. They focused on noble gases such as helium, neon, argon and xenon. Past studies analyzing bubbles of air trapped within ancient rocks found that these rare gases could occur in distinct ratios linked with certain eras of Earth's history. As such, by analyzing the ratios of noble gases seen in this water, the researchers could deduce the age of the water.


The scientists discovered the fluids were trapped in the rocks between 1.5 billion and 2.64 billion years ago.

"It was absolutely mind-blowing," Sherwood Lollar said. "These weren't tens of millions of years old like we might have expected, or even hundreds of millions of years old. They were billions of years old."

The site was formed by geological activity similar to that seen in hydrothermal vents. "We walked along what used to be ocean floor 2.7 billion years ago," Sherwood Lollar said. "You could still see some of the same pillow lava structures now seen on the bottom of the ocean."

Signs of life?

This ancient water poured out of the boreholes the team drilled in the mine at the rate of nearly a half-gallon (2 liters) per minute. It remains uncertain precisely how large this reservoir of water is.

"This is an extremely important question and one that we want to pursue in our future work," Sherwood Lollar said. "We also want to see if there are habitable reservoirs of similar age around the world."

Sherwood Lollar emphasized they have not yet found any signs of life in the water from Timmins. "We're working on that right now," she said. "It'd be fascinating to us if we did, since it'd push back the frontiers of how long life could survive in isolation."

And the implications of such a finding would extend beyond the extremes of life on Earth.

"Finding life in this energy-rich water is especially exciting if one thinks of Mars, where there might be water of similar age and mineralogy under the surface," Sherwood Lollar said.

If any life once arose on Mars billions of years ago as it did on Earth, "then it is likely in the subsurface," Sherwood Lollar said. "If we find the water in Timmins can support life, maybe the same might hold true for Mars as well."

Follow OurAmazingPlanet @OAPlanet, Facebook and Google+.Original article at LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.




 
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/23/oldest-water-earth-underground_n_6354348.html



New 'Treasure Map' Shows Where Earth's Oldest Water Is Hidden Underground
Huffington Post? - 1 day ago

Scientists have long known that pockets of ancient water exist deep beneath Earth's surface





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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/ancient-underground-lake-isolated-from-the-rest-of-the-world-for-27-billion-years-discovered-in-canadian-mine--but-does-it-contain-life-8617683.html


Ancient underground lake isolated from the rest of the world for 2.7 billion years discovered in Canadian mine - but does it contain life?


 Steve Connor   Author Biography
 Wednesday 15 May 2013

Scientists have discovered an ancient pocket of water trapped deep beneath the ground which could have been isolated from the rest of the world for up to 2.7 billion years – making it the oldest known aquifer, with scientists wondering whether it contains life.
 


The water was found pouring out of boreholes from a copper and zinc mine 2.4 kilometres deep beneath Ontario in Canada. Chemical analysis shows that the water could support primitive microbial life-forms if they were adapted to living off the minerals and hydrogen seeping into the water from the surrounding rock.

Tests by researchers have shown that the water is at least 1.5 billion years old, but the surrounding geology suggests it could be much older, dating to a time when all of life on Earth had not evolved much beyond primitive, single-celled microbes.

The scientists said they intend to analyse the water for signs of life, which could help in the development of techniques for finding extra-terrestrial life-forms living within underground pockets of water on either Mars or Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter.

“We’ve found an interconnected fluid system in the deep Canadian crystalline basement that is billions of years old, and capable of supporting life,” said Professor Chris Ballentine of the University of Manchester, a co-author of the Anglo-Canadian study published in the journal Nature.

“Our finding is of huge interest to researchers who want to understand how microbes evolve in isolation, and is central to the whole question of the origin of life, the sustainability of life and life in extreme environments and on other planets,” Professor Ballentine said.

The water has a similar composition of dissolved chemicals to much young water found flowing from rock in a South African mine some 2.8km below ground where microbes have been found to live, the scientists said.

Any life-forms found in the water must be able to survive in total darkness on chemical energy locked up in the ancient rock formation. Scientists have begun tests to analyse the water for any microbes that have survived the long isolation from the rest of the biosphere, said Greg Holland of Lancaster University.

“Our Canadian colleagues are trying to find out if the water contains life right now. What we can be sure of is that we have identified a way in which planets can create and preserve and environment friendly to microbial life for billions of years,” Dr Holland said.

“This is regardless of how inhospitable the surface might be, opening up the possibility of similar environments in the subsurface of Mars,” he said.

Living organisms that can survive in extreme environments – known as extremophiles – have been found in sediments retrieved from deep boreholes, in boiling hot geysers, highly radioactive habitats, deep submarine trenches and the dry, freezing deserts of Antarctica.


 

 


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