Posted on 06/09/2013 7:06:23 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
"Old" might not top the list of the adjectives you'd use to describe water, but that could very well change after reading this story: Scientists say they've found water whose age clocks in at no less than 1.5 billion years, making it the oldest cache to have ever been discovered. (As the BBC explains, the only water to top it is "minute quantities" contained in some rock minerals.) Gold miners in Timmins, Ontario, were the ones who uncovered the water while drilling into bedrock; NPR reports that the team behind the discovery had been requesting such samples from a number of mines; a trio of dating techniques revealed this particular water to be remarkable -- between 1.5 billion and 2.6 billion years old. The BBC reports the water likely didn't begin its ancient life 1.5 miles beneath the surface: It would have seeped from above ground through the earth, eventually becoming trapped. As a geochemist involved in the study explains, "The fluids that we see now are actually preservations of ancient oceans." But that may not be the most interesting part: The water, which contains a good deal of hydrogen, could hold ancient life, too, and the scientists are currently testing samples to see if that's the case. And if it is, that could fuel hope that the same kind of life persists on Mars, which was once covered in oceans as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at pakistantoday.com.pk ...
What about heavy water?
Thanks smokingfrog, JRandomFreeper, and WhiskeyX.
Heavy water, formally called deuterium oxide or 2H2O or D2O, is a form of water that contains a larger than normal amount of the hydrogen isotope deuterium
The geologists agree with you, asserting that it represents ancient ocean water.
I’m not sure how one dates water, but most of the water on earth is now believed to have come from comets which collide with earth on a regular, but diminishingly frequent, basis.
Uhhh...let's see...well since CO2 is a greenhouse gas (even though greenhouses are made out of glass and it's an insulator) and the Earth is getting hotter by the second (although we're having the coolest spring in decades) car pollution and cows farting are destroying the water supply that normally gets regenerated every 6 months. So you have to stop drinking water that wasn't brewed a million years ago, besides, if you drink "older" water you're cooler than everyone else...like if you drive a hybrid!
“I’m not sure how one dates water[....]”
You date the age of the water molecules by counting the ratio of the Oxygen atoms with decayed isotopes of Oxygen versus less decayed isotopes of Oxygen. The older the Oxygen atom is the more likely it will contain a stable isotope of Oxygen. The younger water molecules are much more likely to be composed of Oxygen atoms which have not yet had enough time to decay from an unstable isotope of Oxygen to a stable isotope of Oxygen. By counting the ration of these isotopes of Oxygen, you can see the relative differences in the age of the Oxygen in the water molecules.
I think that the reference here is that is has not been cycled through the atmosphere/oceans/ground for 1.5 billion years.
Now, what difference it makes escapes me.
Any qualification as old water can only be conjecture. In fact, it doesn’t even make sense. That would mean we can date every drop of water that exists.
How did that song go.
Younger women, older whiskey, faster horses and more money?
Or was it
Faster women, older money, more whiskey and younger horses?
Nothing about older water.
Actually, it’s quite interesting. The sample provides an additional series of reference points by which many more measurements may be guaged. In other words, it is another piece of the grand puzzle which reveals more of the larger picture.
Magic.
I think they cut the individual atoms in half and count the rings.
“How would one distinguish one particular molecule of H20 from another molecule of H2O?”
“I think they cut the individual atoms in half and count the rings.”
No, they simply measure the molecular weights. Atoms of a chemical element with different isotopes have different molecular weights, because the atoms have different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei. A sample of water of a certain volume must have a certain total molecular mass to be a pure sample of the same substance with the same mass/weight. A sample composed of a mixture of two different ages will have a total mass/weight that is an average of the two pure samples of different ages.
...I wonder if thats why Shania Twain has a great voice.
(((
Too bad she has a leftist brain.
Any qualification as old water can only be conjecture. In fact, it doesn’t even make sense. That would mean we can date every drop of water that exists.”
No, you would not be able to determine the age of an individual molecule of waterThe isotope of a single atom can bechanged by other nuclear events besides natural decay of the single atom’s isotope. You need a substantial number of the molecules and their atomic isotopes to demonstrate a pattern indicating decay due to age versus decay due to other nuclear events.
My attempt at humor failed. :)
The discoverers haven't decided to tell us exactly how they determined the age of their water.
However, they failed to compare it to the age of gigantic Lake Vostok in Antarctica, discovered relatively recently.
Exactly. they might mean it's water that hasn't seen sunlight in umpty-ump years, but it's the same age as all the rest of the water in the world.
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