Posted on 05/16/2013 7:37:23 AM PDT by rickmichaels
Scientists have found a source of water 2.4 km below the earth's surface near Timmins, Ont., that's believed to be at least a billion years old.
The water was found by geochemists from the University of Manchester and the discovery was published in the journal Nature.
The scientists don't know if the underground water contains any living creatures, but said it's high in methane and hydrogen, which could support life.
They found the water in the 2.7-billion-year-old sulphide deposits in a zinc and copper mine near the northern Ontario city.
Previously, no known free-flowing water passing through the cracks in the Earth's crust has remained isolated for such a long period of time.
Scientists used three types of evidence to determine the water's age, based on the noble gases in the water.
Nah. It was a Columbia picture distributed by Sony pictures.
I would guess that an organism isolated like that would remain 'unchanged'.
Much of the water comes from space. The Earth is pelted with ice crystals from space and has been for billions of years. This 'ice' was found to be the source of static in early telemetry equipment.
Why would you assume that it would remain unchanged? DNA change is inevitable, the inescapable consequence of a molecular inheritance that cannot be replicated with absolute fidelity and is subject to mutation.
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