Researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa explored the basalt cliffs of Baffin Island, the largest island in the Arctic Archipelago and the fifth largest in the world. The tiny fragments of glass contained in the rocks detected small amounts of water. It was also determined the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium (hydrogen isotope) in the found water.
Deuterium occurs naturally in nature, but in seawater is it very little. It is known that the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium in the water on other bodies in our solar system may be slightly different from the Earth.
“The rocks of Baffin Island were collected in 1985. Scientists have so much time on their thorough research. It is known that contain ingredients from the deep mantle “- explains Dr. Lydia Halli.
As he explains the researcher during his way to the surface rocks have not been contaminated sediment from the earth’s crust rocks. Previous studies have shown that this area has remained intact since the formation of the Earth. These are some of the most primitive rocks on the surface of our planet, so they contain water gives us clues about the early history of the Earth.
It turned out that the water in the rocks of Baffin Island has very little deuterium, which He suggests that it reached the Earth after having our globe is already formed and cooled. Probably the molecules of this water comes from the origins of our solar system – with the dust disk around the sun, which formed the planets, including Earth.
The article entitled “The evidence for primary water from the Earth’s mantle,” published in the latest issue of the journal “Science”.
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