Posted on 02/27/2007 3:16:42 PM PST by blam
Huge Underground "Ocean" Found Beneath Asia
Richard A. Lovett
for National Geographic News
February 27, 2007
A giant blob of water the size of the Arctic Ocean has been discovered hundreds of miles beneath eastern Asia, scientists report.
Researchers found the underground "ocean" while scanning seismic waves as they passed through Earth's interior.
But nobody will be exploring this sea by submarine. The water is locked in moisture-containing rocks 400 to 800 miles (700 to 1,400 kilometers) beneath the surface.
"I've gotten all sorts of emails asking if this is the water that burst out in Noah's flood," said the leader of the research team, Michael Wysession of Washington University in St. Louis.
"It isn't an ocean. [The water] is a very low percentage [of the rock], probably less than 0.1 percent."
Given the region's size, however, that's enough to add up to a vast amount of water.
Earthquakes Reveal "Ocean"
Wysession and former graduate student Jesse Lawrence discovered the damp spot by observing how seismic waves from distant earthquakes pass through Earth's mantle.
The wet zone, which runs from Indonesia to the northern tip of Russia, showed up as an area of relatively weak rock, causing the seismic waves to lose strength much more rapidly than elsewhere (see map of Asia.)
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
So if you dig a long enough hole, you'll drown before you reach China?
Map Of Asia
Somehow, this must have been caused by global warming.
There goes my nougat center theory!
So Russia is laying in the wet spot is what I'm hearing here?
I just bought a tour package to the new ocean on Travelocity.
No by GWB!!
I remember a Japanese scientist reporting a similar finding perhaps 10 years ago. I seem to remember the submarine ocean being beneath japan at a depth of a bout 200 miles.
Which apparently didn't impress the author enough to get him to quit referring to it as one.
If this isn't proof of global warming, I don't know what is.
Would be interesting to read an account of the adventures of the researchers as they passed through the Earth's interior. Must have been quite a trip.
Very interesting.
Mr. Wysession handled the Flood questions pretty cordially (at least in this article), considering he is probably not a Creationist.
Also, dunes of sand in the Gobi Desert are supposed to be saturated with water some distance below the surface, sort of anchoring them they don't move are much as dunes in the Sahara.
"So if you dig a long enough hole, you'll drown before you reach China?"
Yep...and Cyndi Lauper was obviously lying when she said that she "has a hole in her heart that goes all the way to China".
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