Skip to main content

Home/ SciByte/ Group items tagged AncientWater

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Mars Base

Billion-year-old water could hold clues to life on Earth and Mars - 0 views

phys.org/...old-clues-life-earth-mars.html

scibyte94 AncientWater

shared by Mars Base on 16 May 13 - No Cached
  • A UK-Canadian team of scientists has discovered ancient pockets of water, which have been isolated deep underground for billions of years and contain abundant chemicals known to support life
  • This water could be some of the oldest on the planet and may even contain life
  • the similarity between the rocks that trapped it and those on Mars raises the hope that comparable life-sustaining water could lie buried beneath the red planet's surface
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Researchers
  • analysed water pouring out of boreholes from a mine 2.4 kilometres beneath Ontario, Canada
  • found that the water is rich in dissolved gases like hydrogen, methane and different forms – called isotopes – of noble gases such as helium, neon, argon and xenon
  • there is as much hydrogen in the water as around hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean, many of which teem with microscopic life
  • The hydrogen and methane come from the interaction between the rock and water, as well as natural radioactive elements in the rock reacting with the water
  • These gases could provide energy for microbes that may not have been exposed to the sun for billions of years.
  • The crystalline rocks surrounding the water are thought to be around 2.7 billion years old. But no-one thought the water could be the same age, until now
  • Using ground-breaking techniques
  • researchers show that the fluid is at least 1.5 billion years old, but could be significantly older.
  • interconnected fluid system in the deep Canadian crystalline basement that is billions of years old, and capable of supporting life
  • Before this finding, the only water of this age was found trapped in tiny bubbles in rock and is incapable of supporting life
  • the water found in the Canadian mine pours from the rock at a rate of nearly two litres per minute
  • don't yet know if the underground system in Canada sustains life
1 - 2 of 2
Showing 20▼ items per page