Many myths and descriptions, in the past the Earth has suffered a cataclysm – a flood that drowns mythological characters to cleanse the earth of their wicked deeds. It would be difficult to prove such a thing in the world of science, but new research sheds an interesting light on the past of our planet.
(Greek myth – Flood here), (Chinese myth, mention of the Flood here), (Creation according to Norse mythology here)
According to a new analysis that affects the characteristics of the Earth’s mantle, the world in the past was once a huge aquatic world. A vast ocean covered the Earth, with very little land mass on the surface. According to a team of researchers from Harvard University, the drainage of all this huge mass of water is “drunk” deep into the mantle. The researchers’ report states:
“We calculated the water storage capacity of the Earth’s solid mantle as a function of the mantle temperature. We found that the water storage capacity of a hot, early mantle may have been less than the amount of water the Earth’s mantle currently has. , so that the extra water in the mantle would now inhabit the surface of the early Earth and form larger oceans. time. “
It has been said for years that a lot of water is stored deep underground (hydropower groups composed of oxygen and hydrogen atoms). The research team on the data collected from the found minerals (olivine, ringwoodite) is working on the hypothesis that the development of the mantle’s capacity since the birth of the Earth 4.54 billion years ago has increased since then.
“The storage capacity of bulk water in the Earth’s solid mantle has been significantly affected by secular cooling due to the temperature-dependent capacity of the storage minerals in its composition. Today, the mantle’s water storage capacity is 1.86 to 4.41 times that of today’s surface ocean mass. “
This is related to a previous study in which due to the abundance of certain isotopes of oxygen, the Earth 3.2 billion years ago had less open land than now. This raises other questions, such as the origin of life on Earth and the debate over whether life was formed by saltwater oceans or freshwater lakes on land. If the assumption that in the past there was a huge ocean covering almost the entire surface of the Earth, then this would shed interesting light on the origin of organisms.
In addition, research may be important in the search for extraterrestrial life, as oceanic planets abound in the universe. This can better guide our understanding of how to look for life forms in water basins on other planets and satellites and in our solar system (such as Europe and Enceladus).
The study was published in AGU Advances.
