Huge Reservoir Discovered Beneath Asia

anthemaniac writes "Seismic observations reveal a huge reservoir of water in Earth's mantle beneath Asia. It's actually rock saturated with water, but it's an ocean's worth of water ... as much as is in the whole Arctic Ocean. How did it get there? A slab of water-laden crust sank, and the water evaporated out when it was heated, and then it was trapped, the thinking goes. The discovery fits neatly with the region's heavy seismic activity and fits neatly with the idea that the planet's moving crustal plates are lubricated with water."

Re:China...

[Timbotronic]

There's not a snowball's chance in hell they'll extract it. It's over 1000 kilometers down. To put that in perspective I think the deepest well ever drilled (Oil well in the North Sea IIRC) was 20kms deep - 2% of the distance. The depth for most oil and gas wells is between 3 and 5 kms and just getting that far takes some serious engineering and costs a fortune.

Unsurprisingly, there's not a lot of research into drilling wells deeper than that "oil and gas window". It's a pity though, the amount of heat energy in that water would be staggering.

Re:So THAT's where the flood water CAME FROM

[Crazyscottie]

Erm... Call me crazy, but I think the story says that the floods DID destroy all life - except those animals on the ark, of course. Whether or not the story of Noah and the Ark on the whole agrees with science may be arguable, but your comment suggests that you've only researched one side.

Re:So THAT's where the flood water CAME FROM

[Anonymous Coward]

Never heard of a salt-water well? Here's one mentioned in Tibet: http://zt.tibet.cn/tibetzt-en/xzcwh/xzcwh_2_7.htm [tibet.cn] Also the word "sealt-wille" appears in Bosworth and Toller's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/html/oe_bosworthtoller/b 0852.html [ff.cuni.cz] Guess what "sealt-wille" means. They've been around a while.

Re:So THAT's where the flood water CAME FROM

[b0r1s]

The volume in the article doesnt match your math, but you're basically correct. Most natural sea water has a specific gravity of about 1.024-1.025. You can drop it as low as 1.009 without any real damage to fish, but invertebrates die pretty quickly if you do that (great way to treat saltwater fish for parasites, the lower SG of freshwater causes osmotic shock and they die).

flood theory

[Bob-taro]

Oh, no! Christians will think this is evidence for the flood! Let's all preemptively belittle that idea! Well, I'm a Christian and I do think this is in line with the flood theory explained on this site [creationscience.com]. Many cultures of the world have a Great Flood [wikipedia.org] legend similar to the one in the Bible.

Just to save the mockers some time, I'll mention that I fully realize that the hydroplate theory:

• has critics
• even if correct, doesn't prove God exists or that evolution is false

Re:So THAT's where the flood water CAME FROM

[tsalaroth]

Erm... Call me crazy, but I think the story says that the floods DID destroy all life - except those animals on the ark, of course. Whether or not the story of Noah and the Ark on the whole agrees with science may be arguable, but your comment suggests that you've only researched one side.

Any scholar of the Torah will tell you the Ark is a metaphor for something else. As to what, I've never been able to find (or get) an answer that wasn't from some crackpot wearing a tin-foil hat.

Re:So THAT's where the flood water CAME FROM

[general scruff]

John 3:16 For God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son, in order that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life.

One perfect man (Adam) sinned and passed that sin onto all human kind.

One perfect man (Jesus) died without sinning, and canceled out that debt.

Gods perfect sense of justice forced him to make such a sacrifice for all humankind.

Looking at it that way, doesn't option B sound more likely??