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."

So THAT's where all the water went

[Anonymous Coward]

... after Noah's Flood! This proves the existence of God! Suck it, James Cameron!!!12!!

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

[rjamestaylor]

Genesis 7:11-12
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.

I see your snarky comment and raise it one Interesting one.

Re:

[mikael]

A release of methane hydrate? [physorg.com]

Sorry

[encoderer]

Sorry.. That's a string bet. This isn't the wild west. You must make your wager in one continuous play.

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

[Brad1138]

The vast majority of sea life is VERY sensitive to the salinity of the water they live in. The sudden addition of fresh water would dilute the salt water to about 1/7 or 1/8 and would have either directly or indirectly killed all sea-life, completely destroying the only ecosystem left.

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:

[Brad1138]

OK, that doesn't really change my point. If the ENTIRE worlds ecosystem was destroyed it would take some time to revive it (probably millions of years) if it wasn't beyond recovery. They were told to take enough food for the year on the arc, what did they eat when they stepped foot onto a completely world. it takes about 4 months for carrots to grow from seed (for example) that's a long time to go without food. When the water did "recede" there would be no fresh water anywhere anymore, plants don't grow wel

Re:

[LynnwoodRooster]

OK, so if we accept that God flooded the entire world in a matter of days, why the heck can't you accept that He would just provide food as needed, or make all the sea animals survive because He wanted too? Essentially, if you accept one miracle, what's one more?

Re:

[h2g2bob]

You mean like the manna from heaven? If God is all powerful, anything is possible. Which is the big problem with the idea of gods. You can explain anything with "God did it." It's all so very convenient!

What causes flooding - God does it.
How was the world made - God did it.
Why do we need to go and kill those people - God says so.

See? Brilliant answers without the irritating need of rational thought. Which is sad, because if there is a god, it is obvious that he or she designed the world with our understandi

Re:

[malsdavis]

"Why do we need to go and kill those people - God says so."

The fact that in many wars (and there are countless examples, the Crusades being classic, totally refutable ones), both sides claim god is on their side, means if god is real he is either:

a) A really sick bastard who either enjoys watching groups kill, rape and torture each other,
or
b) the various clergies of the world do not actually know God's wishes are and so established religions are just as likely being blasphemous as godly.

Personally, consider

Re:

[indifferent children]

He would just provide food as needed, or make all the sea animals survive because He wanted too?

Of course, he could have also just saved all of the animals that he wanted saved. But it is soooo much more fun to screw with people, and convince them to build a big unnecessary boat, and sleep in cramped quarters with hundreds of thousands of animals (1,100 species of bats alone don't ya know?) for a year.

I had a boss once who gave people non-productive, frustrating tasks just to prove to everyone that he

Re:

[hswerdfe]

so technically the English translation of the bible never uses the word "species", it refers to 2 of every "kind" of animal.
Creationists have this elaborate world constructed where they have divided the world animals into a few thousand kinds of animals. and use a hyper-evolution thing to explain the variety of species we have now.
it is really very strange.

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

[codeButcher]

What's interesting is that that passage uses the Hebrew word "eretz", which gets translated as "earth" in all (English) translations I've seen. Now, "earth" in itself is a very generic term, and does not NECESSARILY mean "the planet Earth". And "eretz" could also be translated as "land", "country", "ground" etc.

So the choice is up to the translator, and if you have 2 millennia's worth of tradition (which was based on incomplete knowledge), it is quite hard to break free of the mould.

It is certainly possible that the Noah flood was a localized event, without invalidating the Scriptures (as seen in the original language).

Black Sea Deluge Theory

[spun]

Here's an interesting theory along those lines. [wikipedia.org] Synopsis: Glaciation ends, rivers stop feeding the Black Sea (which was the Black Freshwater Lake at the time), evaporation and rising sea levels put it well below sea level. Waters in the Mediterranean overflow the Bosporus. Ten cubic miles of water flow into the Black Sea per day for at least three hundred days.

So we have a huge flood, in the right part of the world, at around the right time for the ancestors of the Jewish people to remember it and write about it in the old testament. And a possible reason Deluge mythology is so universal. A waterfall two hundred times the size of Niagra Falls flooding 60,000 square miles of previously settled land might be something you'd tell your grandkids about.

Re:

[TemporalBeing]

It is certainly possible that the Noah flood was a localized event, without invalidating the Scriptures (as seen in the original language).

Except that has a different issue with Genesis 7:17-23 [biblegateway.com] - "They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet." (versus 19 & 20 specifically quoted here)

How exactly do you cover "all the high mountains" and not cover the

Re:

[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

[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).

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

[Phroggy]

"Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more."
Proverbs 31:6-7 (NIV) [biblegateway.com]

I defy anyone to find a better passage to take out of context.

Re:

[simm1701]

I've always prefered Ezekiel 4:12 And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it in their sight with dung that cometh out of man

thats one of the more amusing translations - there are several less literal (to the original language) but more accurate translations - but they are half as amusing to misconstrue

Re:

[Digital Vomit]

there are several less literal (to the original language) but more accurate translations

More accurate translations? In context, the "less accurate" translation, as you describe it, makes perfect sense. It was a one-time example used to shock people.

"Prepare and eat this food as you would barley cakes. While all the people are watching, bake it over a fire using dried human dung as fuel and then eat the bread." Then the Lord said, "This is how Israel will eat defiled bread in the Gentile lands to whi

Re:

[simm1701]

However the translation I gave above has been used to suggest that the dung was used as an ingrediant, rather than the cooking medium.

Re:

[Digital Vomit]

Oh, sorry. I didn't read it that way, and now I guess my response doesn't make sense. I guess it might be less of a translation issue than an interpretation of archaic English issue. :-P

Re:

[mcvos]

My personal favourite, nay, my personal motto, is:

"One hand full of rest is better than two fists full of labor and striving after wind." (Ecclesiastes 4:6)

Re:

[DougWebb]

I seem to recall a passage about a prophet asking God to send some bears to maul a bunch of kids...

Re:

[ndogg]

...Genesis 8:1-5, you'll notice that God "caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the [Flood] water subsided."

Those God Beans really clear out the gut, huh?

I hope God gave Moses a gas mask.

Re:

[cluckshot]

Back On topic...

The issue of a massive quantity of water in the mantle of the earth throws a big monkey wrench into the current theories of how the earth is formed and structured. It also throws a bunch of wrenches into the whole cosmological theory basis for how the earth formed etc. If the earth formed starting little and then grew hot from impacts and so forth then the water would be boiled out into space and the oceans would not exist. Sorry but the whole theory basis for the formation and structure

Re:So THAT's where all the water went

[MillionthMonkey]

These are certainly interesting times. The Arabs had "our" oil, and now it turns out the Chinese have "our" water in their mantle. Expect to see a lot of cheap knock-off water hitting the market soon.

in order to really prove that there was a global flood, you would need to produce the Mexicans that built the Arc

I thought the Ark maintenance guys had decided by Genesis 8:20 that the whole thing was made in China, and not a Noah original with Mexican hired laborers. It carried two of every shipping container, one for the male and one for the female of each species, plus piles of inexpensive cheap shirts, sweaters, pants, ties, coffee mugs, pillows, socks, cordless drills, cheap carbon-zinc batteries, and phones, all wrapped in those annoying plastic bags. You know how to spot an Ark that's a cheap Chinese knockoff? When the Ark is empty it displaces more water than a genuine Noah's Ark. Also, the termites and the woodpeckers can tell you. God made them so they just know.

As to proving the existence of a god, in whatever form you want, that's an exercise best left to the reader.

If there were no God, someone would surely manufacture a convincing knock-off of Him.

Re:

[Broken scope]

If god did not exist it would be necessary for man to create him. Wasn't that Voltaire?

Re:

[sporkme]

A witty saying proves nothing. --Voltaire

be like the Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

the planet's moving crustal plates are lubricated with water.

Be like the Earth: use water-based lubricants, kids.

Re:

[oldhack]

Wrong website, bud. They/we have no need for lubricant.

dammit!

[Anonymous Coward]

There goes my astroglide tectonics theory! Back to the drawing board...

Re:

[istewart]

But Astroglide is water-based...

I get the same thing once in a while....

[blankoboy]

but a tall glass of Prune juice always gets that trapped "slab of water-laden crust" out just fine.

Mother Earth Complained of feeling bloated...

[Bamafan77]

And all this time we ignored her only to have her proven right by a bunch of nosey geologists.

Great. Now we'll never hear the end of it.

I wonder how those human-habitation-on-the-moon projects are going?

Venus

[Tablizer]

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."

This may explain why Venus, a planet of similar size, appears to have a very different resurfacing mechanism. Venus's surface appears to "explode" once roughly every half-a-billion years, and then stay mellow until the next cycle. Thus, pressure probably builds up until a giant venusquake is eminant and kabam! Water on Earth appearently provides some lubrication such that the pressure is releived relatively gradually in comparison.

Re:Venus

[mastershake_phd]

Water cant prevent all pressure build up.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/1999/supervol canoes.shtml [bbc.co.uk]

Re:Venus

[ZorbaTHut]

From the linked article:
Scientists have very few answers, but they do know that the impact of a Yellowstone eruption is terrifying to comprehend. Huge areas of the USA would be destroyed, the US economy would probably collapse, and thousands might die.

Thousands . . . might? In that situation I'd say "hundreds of thousands will" is far, far more likely.

They're either hilariously overexaggerating the first part or hilariously underexaggerating the second.

Re:Venus

[Jeff DeMaagd]

It's hard to say, though it does seem like an incredibly lowball estimate. Still, a major disaster that hits the US doesn't seem to cause anywhere near the same level of fatalities as it does in other areas, though a heck of a lot of damage is done.

I would have thought that a Yellowstone eruption was going to wipe out a few states, and pretty much anyone in them. The ash makes helicopter operation practically imposible and hot chunks of rubble will just sear through tires, leaving not much to evacuate with, assuming that the CO2 and sulfur emissions don't choke.

Re:

[mastershake_phd]

Not to mention the "nuclear winter" and following crop failures. Our "global economy" lives hand to mouth. Billions would die, not thousands.

Great

[Mark_MF-WN]

Hey, it gets my vote. Any situation where massive numbers of human deaths can be associated with the word "hilariously" twice in the same sentence, is a situation that I want to be a part of.

Re:

[dave420]

Or maybe they figured out there would most likely be a warning, allowing evacuation, and are engaging in something akin to actual journalism and not sensationalism? :)

Re:

[ZorbaTHut]

If the US economy collapses I don't care how evacuated the immediate area is, there will be thousands upon thousands of deaths.

Plus, how exactly would you go about evacuating "huge areas of the US"? Even assuming you could find everyone (you couldn't) the amount of rioting and damage that would occur would be extraordinary.

I'm perfectly prepared to believe that the first segment is exaggerated for the sake of journalism. But if the first part is in any way accurate, the second part is extremely minimized.

Re:

[dave420]

Journalists, contrary to popular belief, can't make things up. They aren't professors of Crazyshitology. They don't know what's going to happen, and their guesswork isn't good enough for their publication. Even if it is, in your opinion, obvious, without expertise and credentials backing that opinion up, it's not worthy of inclusion. If you want conjecture, guesswork, and ass-delving, go to Fox news or Keith Olbermann.

Re:

[khallow]

There's also the matter of how much preparation time we'd get. My take is that there would be a warning time on the order of months or years, perhaps even decades. Volcanoes traditionally are predictable. A surprise eruption of Yellowstone might kill millions through the direct impact of the eruption and then hundreds of millions through the climate changes and food shortages (virtually all in the Third World). But it's much more likely that any such eruption will be expected. Then the US just needs to evac

Re:

[mastershake_phd]

Thats a horrible pun, but a great idea.

Let's proceed carefully with that one.

[Kadin2048]

Seems like there's a possibility there, but I'm not sure I'd want to pump water in there. Water has this nasty tendency to try and take up more space when you heat it than it does when it's cold, so I'd be concerned that in trying to reduce the pressure down there, we'd pump a few gallons of HOH in, and suddenly the pressure would increase as it all tries to become steam and escape. Obviously, the boiling point depends on the pressure, but you'd want to be very sure of what was going to happen before you di

Usefulness?

[RealGrouchy]

So TFA states that there is good chance of there being lots of water beneath the crust in Asia. Okay, so that's water cooler (whoops...no pun intended) material.

What would make it truly interesting (to non-seismologists) would be if that water were fresh (i.e. drinkable) and accessible (so it could be used as a drinking water supply).

- RG>

Re:

[Edis Krad]

I'm not really sure about this. The article also mentions that the water tends to dampen seismic waves (and some sort of tectonic plate lubricant). If you were to remove it, earthquakes could become disastrous.

Re:

[arthurpaliden]

So are you saying that tapping a little water from this "ocean" will cause more earth quakes. There are always earthquakes, big and small. Next you will probably say that by producing greenhouse gases we are effecting climate change........

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Dear moderators, this person hasn't any idea what he/she is stalking about.

This water is really utterly tangential to any modern earthquake risk in East Asia. This water occurs at great depth within the earth, far below the relatively shallow depth at which large damaging earthquakes occur, and there is far too little of it to significantly disrupt seismic shear waves let alone significantly disrupt p waves from even an unusually deep earthquake. Its removal (which is by the way is impossible to accompl

Agricultural use

[EmbeddedJanitor]

It has already been speculated by many that if Asia (well China in particular) gets its shit together it can wipe the world as a commodity agricultural producer (just like it has as a manufacturer). Water is a huge constraint to massive agricultural output. If they have a huge amount of water available, they're all go!

I smell another Oscar!

[ScentCone]

What would make it truly interesting (to non-seismologists) would be if that water were fresh (i.e. drinkable) and accessible (so it could be used as a drinking water supply).

No, no, no. You're missing the point. The only way to make this interesting is to get a grant to study how (not whether!) this find demonstrates the need for Al Gore to make a sequel to his movie. If there's no global warming tie-in, then it can't be science.

Am I crazy?

[spun]

I think global warming is a real problem. I think it's probably caused by humans.

The problem? I also think Al Gore is a pompous ass and his movie was the most boring piece of shit I've ever seen. By the end, I was rooting for global warming, on the theory that it might kill Al Gore. So, does that mean I'm crazy?

Water based lubricants versus oil based lubricants

[andy314159pi]

planet's moving crustal plates are lubricated with water.

The planet's crusts used to lubricate with oil based lubricants until it got the memo to switch to water based lubricants.

Re:Water based lubricants versus oil based lubrica

[ralphdaugherty]

The planet's crusts used to lubricate with oil based lubricants until it got the memo to switch to water based lubricants.

What's even funnier than your joke is that it's rated Interesting instead of Funny and elicited some speculation on switching to water based lubricants. Holy cow :)

After reading the article (such as it is), it seems like awfully fuzzy science. They estimate that .1% of waterlogged ocean bottom is made up of water, and if .1% of the bottom of As

It's not fair!

[Anonymous Coward]

First they got all the tea in China and now they got all the water too?
It's not fair!

Illuminati

[Llarian]

Its the sea of Valusia, of course...

difference between oil & water on seismograms?

[nido]

The discovery fits neatly ... with the idea that the planet's moving crustal plates are lubricated with water."

I'm a fan of the Abiogenic theory of oil [wikipedia.org]. This theory holds that crude oil does NOT come from 'dinosaurs' and swamps, but from some other source in the Earth system. IANACG (crackpot geologist), but I think crude oil is just a part of the earth's carbon cycle. Carbon gets sequestered in the ocean (coral/etc), said carbon gets submerged into the mantle, and millions/billions of years later gets tr

Re:

[Lehk228]

the biggest thing in favor of aboitic oil generation is that the likelyhood of useful energy containing material being allowed to sink that far into the earth is juist silly, something would have found a way to eat it on it's way down.

the energy coming from the heat of the planet is more reasonable, though it doesn't give us an out on conserving oil, since even with abiotic production there is no way to know how much to expect to be produced at a given time.

Re:

[93 Escort Wagon]

"IANACG (crackpot geologist), but I think crude oil is just a part of the earth's carbon cycle."

This comment isn't aimed directly at you; but...

1) No crackpot geologist ever thinks that he is "one of those crackpot geologists".
2) Even crackpot theories tend to have at least a few adherents, and they tend to be very vocal and argumentative. It can make it seem at first glance as if the theory has wider support than is actually true.

Re:

[nido]

All truly revolutionary ideas start as 'crackpot' theories. After years & decades of lonesome, dedicated research, some of these theories become widely accepted. ... Wouldn't have replied, but I have a '93 Escort Wagon too. Be sure to change your timing belt at the regularly scheduled intervals for more reliable transportation. Manual or Automatic? :)

Re:

[shess]

I'm a fan of the Abiogenic theory of oil. ... I think crude oil is just a part of the earth's carbon cycle.

Does it matter? Under one set of theories, we have to bury a bunch of biomass, wait a couple hundred million years, and we have more oil. Under the other theory, the oil is a natural part of planetary development, so we have to wait ... a couple billion years? It's a little like arguing about the cosmic microwave background radiation, it's an interesting argument, but not terribly practical.

Re:difference between oil & water on seismogra

[TubeSteak]

In light of this overview, hydrocarbon economies are bad not because of Carbon Dioxide, but because we're draining our planet of its lubrication. This is probably a Bad Thing - I expect some major seismic activity in the next 50-1000 years.

Draining our planet of lubrication?
Are you serious?
Oil wells go down ~7 miles tops.
Earthquakes' points of origin are much much deeper than that.

From the U.S. Geological Survey

FAQ - Earthquakes, Faults, Plate Tectonics, Earth Structure:
Q: Can we cause earthquakes? Is there any way to prevent earthquakes? [usgs.gov]
Short answer: Yes, as a result of fluid injection into wells. No

Common Myths about Earthquakes:
Can you prevent large earthquakes by making lots of small ones, or by "lubricating" the fault with water or another material? [usgs.gov]
Short answer: No & yes, but it would be a bad idea.

Soo.... we can cause earthquakes by injecting fluids into wells, but I've never heard that removing fluids from a well can cause an earthquake.

Re:

[nido]

I've read that some old oil wells, which had supposedly been 'tapped out' and capped over decades ago, have re-filled in the intervening years.

Recall that oil wells are pressurized, and are only economical to tap as long as that pressure stays high. Exploration for oil involves poking a hole where the oil is and measuring how much spurts out. If it's enough, they'll put up a permanent rig & piping.

Recall Kuwait in 1991, when some of the oil wells were bombed & set aflame... Took the special firefigh

Pool of water?

[SeaFox]

Too bad its not oil. We'd have the government rushing to develop a Journey-to-the-Center-of-the-Earth type project to investigate.

Why is there still water on the surface?

[bremstrong]

Over the life of the Earth, it seems the water would slowly disappear into the crust as the ocean plates are subducted.

If it is in a steady state, where is the water coming back out?

Re:

[bky1701]

It IS going inside it. It's just at a very, very slow rate, like many other things.

The Deepest Hole

[nephridium]

This is reminiscent of an article [wikipedia.org] I read about the deepest drilling endeavor ever put forth. While the scientists' educated guess was that the rock material would turn to basalt at around 3-4km in actuality they were confronted with metamorphic rock filled with water! According to the scientists the water might have formed out of O and H atoms "squeezed" out of the surrounding rock and having no way to escape - this would mean it would actually be drinkable water. Furthermore they found large amounts of hydrogen gas contained in the crust which could alleviate some of our energy concerns once we put more effort into hydrogen fuel cell [wikipedia.org] research.

I wonder what else mother earth has in store for us considering we only scratched the surface - the drill hole went down to 12km while the earth's radius is more than 6000km..

Re:

[MobyDisk]

Furthermore they found large amounts of hydrogen gas contained in the crust which could alleviate some of our energy concern

While it wouldn't result in a CO2 increase, it wouldn't be renewable either.

Looking at the map in the article:

[NeuroManson]

One thing I found to be unusual, and possibly more worth examining, is how the areas illustrated in the article map are almost precisely the same shape as the major continents. See http://images.livescience.com/images/070228_beijin g_anom_02.jpg [livescience.com]

Seems kinda weird, possibly a leftover effect from previous tectonic shifts?

Tesla

[Zaatxe]

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.

How would that affect Tesla's plans to break Earth in two? I'm just asking, I do not plan to take this plan ahead!!

We should be so lucky

[motorsabbath]

"city-of-R'lyeh"

heh. That would fix things on the planet's surface fairly quickly, if we could wake the old bugger up....

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:

[fredrated]

And they WILL use this. In a video about how the Grand Canyon was formed in the Flood, they interview a U.S.G.S. scientist and he says "During the miocene there was a huge lake in north eastern Arizona", without mentioning that the miocene ended 5 million years ago.

Re:the creationsists will say...

[JeanPaulBob]

Just FYI...I'm sure that's true for many people out there, but for myself, yes, of course there could be evidence to convince me that Jesus wasn't God. Partly that means that if some of the evidence we do have were different, I wouldn't believe. But as for the Cameron documentary--if the ossuary belonging to the guy named Jesus still had the bones in it, and those bones showed nail holes from crucifixion... Well, I would wait for verification the bones hadn't been tampered with, but there's fair chance I would no longer be a Christian after that. Combining the names with crucifixion would be a bit much.

I haven't seen the documentary or read the book yet, so I can only evaluate the statements they've made so far, but they've said some truly silly things, so I'm not expecting much from the documentary. (For example, Cameron claimed on the Today Show that a document called the Acts of Phillip "definitely identifies Mary Magdalene as Mariamne". Go look up the text online, it's linked from the Wikipedia article. It includes a woman named Mariamne, but it definitely doesn't identify her as Mary Magdalene. The word "Magdalene" doesn't even appear. The Mariamne in the story is the sister of Phillip, and she turns into a glass box full of light and fire when she's threatened. Some scholars think that she's Mary Magdalene, others identify her as Mary of Bethany...But it's all quite speculative.)

Re:

[karmic_penguin]

No, couldn't still be down there from the moon-forming impact (we're talking ~4.5 *billion* years ago). It would have made the entire surface of the earth molten and evaporated any water that was already there. If you read the article it explains that this was probably produced by compaction and heating of an H2O-rich oceanic plate after it was subducted under the continental plate. Seems like a plausible explanation, no?

Re:

[Radon360]

One could only speculate. Would it be out of line to think that if enough water were extracted, China would start falling into one gigantic sinkhole? I guess one would have to know more about the geology in the area first.

Hopefully, this might put an end to the silly idea that occasionally rears its head about sending supertankers into the Great Lakes to take on lake water to ship back to Asia. I never saw how something like this would be economically feasible.

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:

[flyrok]

The article is misleading. It's not like there is a free body of water in the lower mantle. The water is carried there in hydrous minerals that dehydrate as they become unstable at the increased pressure/temperature of the lower mantle. That water, which was originally near the earth's surface, is then absorbed as new and different hydrous minerals form, ones that are stable in the lower mantle--like Mg-perovskite. One of interesting results of this research is the notion of water recycling on a whole earth

Re:

[monsted]

Hopefully, this might put an end to the silly idea that occasionally rears its head about sending supertankers into the Great Lakes to take on lake water to ship back to Asia. I never saw how something like this would be economically feasible.

They're already sending supertankers to the UAE to pick up loads of desalinated water that they can then sell cheaper than tap water in Europe. Apparently, cheap power is all you need.

Re:

[c6gunner]

Obviously you didn't RTFA. There's really no way to access this water.

Re:

[freedom_india]

I think Jules Verne is right and was right when he wrote his novel.
Now all that remains is, travel to iceland, find the damned volcano and see if "Arne Sakknussen"'s name is scratched near the Central Sea.

Re:

[c6gunner]

Silly? You're talking about trying to de-hydrate rocks at unimaginable depths, and I'm the one that's silly? What do you do for an encore? Tell me I'm dumb for thinking that we could never power a space-ship on orange-juice?

Re:Combine that with the recent minerals

[Shihar]

If the only thing you need to kick ass was mineral wealth, Japan should have just thrown themselves upon a sword and given up from day 1. Japan has absolutely no mineral wealth, nor does Hong Kong. Taiwan is pretty sparse in mineral wealth as well. Plenty of African nations are up to their necks in valuable things you can dig out of the ground.

Mineral wealth is nice, but it is hardly a deal maker. China has some serious, crippling problems that is going to keep it from being the magical fairy tail land that people hope for. The demographic imbalances of China in the male to female ratio are horrifying and an invitation to civil strife. China's bureaucracy is corrupt and crippling to industry. China is very lucky it has 1.2 billion people running around it, because unlike the US, China's xenophobia does a handy job preventing it from doing a world wide brain drain as the US is so notorious for. China's government has its hands so far up the ass of its own economy that one incompetent move on the government could spell disaster for the entire nation's economy. We saw and example of this yesterday when the Chinese stock market dumped 10% of its value on a rumor that the government was about to do something dumb.

China has some very sever problems. True, China is a big growth engine right now, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that China was so desperately poor in the past. The Chinese government has done some things right in opening up their markets. They have also managed to keep law and order (which set them well ahead of most of Africa) which counts for a lot. That said, China has some very sever organizational problems with their government. Unless China commits to a real restructuring of their government, I really don't fear all that much for the US position of #1 in the world economy.

Re:Combine that with the recent minerals

[WindBourne]

Actually, the mineral wealth is what allowed America to remain at the top as long as we have. Basically, we had low costs minerals. Transportation on copper, oil, and iron are expensive. But if you can transport just a short ways, then you lower your manufactuering costs a great deal. Some have pointed out Japan as being the powerhouse without mineral wealth, but they have pushed to have high quality goods. SK Took over the low end stuff and now is pushing into higher end products. That means that China has the low end (read crappy) products with very low quality. It is improving, but it will be decades before that happens. In the mean time, they now have assess to low costs mineral AND are trying to ship as much of other minerals to china as possible. Basically, they are trying to increase the costs for other manufactuers, namely USA, Japan, and EU. Smart on their part

But yeah, I agree that China has some MAJOR issues that will be coming at them. But the difference in sex is less of a problem for china. As you pointed out, that lots of single men tend to be agressive (think of the west or even of alaska). That can be hard on a society. But historically, nations have harnessed that into armies and invaded other nations. In particular, they do so to take a resource, such as an island, water, iron or copper. Of course, some just go after oil.

Re:

[khallow]

Huh, the grandparent already explained why you are wrong. There are plenty of countries with tremendous mineral wealth. Only a few of those countries are the US or other developed world countries. And relative to mineral resources the US hasn't been that impressive. IMHO the Third World has consistently outperformed the US ever since the end of the Second World War.

The obvious reason that the US is economically huge while Indonesia, a country with similar resources and population is not, is the physical,

Re:

[bmo]

You said:

"Plenty of African nations are up to their necks in valuable things you can dig out of the ground."

And:

"Mineral wealth is nice, but it is hardly a deal maker. "

And:

"True, China is a big growth engine right now"

I'll give you _one_ guess which country is all over Africa making as many deals for mineral wealth as possible.

They may be communists, but the urge to wheel and deal is in the DNA of China. They are willing to deal with anyone. President is a homicidal dictator? They don't care. Where we

Re:

[Bryan Ischo]

You cannot seriously be suggesting that the USA exercises some kind of ethical standard in deciding which country to deal with and for what purposes. The counter examples to this are simply too numerous and easy to find to even bother listing here. And if you're trying to compare the USA's foreign policies favorably with China ... excuse me??? Read any news headlines whatsoever in the past, oh, FORTY YEARS?!?!

Re:

[246o1]

Your thesis, that the US has moral compunctions about dealing with certain nations while China does not, is naive. The US has been willing to deal with all manner of tyrant, and supports several rather evil dictatorships (Saudi Arabia, for the most obvious example). The US has also been willing to overthrow democratic governments in the support of US business interests (Guatemala for United Fruit, for example).

Now, there are countries the US doesn't deal with and China does, and vice versa, but to try to

Re:

[Aussie]

but the urge to wheel and deal is in the DNA of China.

Reminds of a line from a Heinlein book about 2 Chinese falling down a hole and getting rich selling rocks to each other.

Re:Combine that with the recent minerals

[Shihar]

Well, the US is pretty damn big and has a large population. In terms of raw power, the US is pretty damn hard to top. That said, there are some Eastern European nations like Estonia who are really toying around with some truly alternative forms of government. While I doubt Estonia is ever going to drop the US to its knees, it could very well wield the power of a nation like Japan... which is not bad for a little Eastern European country that is smaller then most US states.

The big countries that have the mass to match the US pound for pound really just don't have their shit together. Western European nations are in the process of shedding off more population then they can afford to dump due to low population growth and low immigration. Europe is going into a death phase and their social system is not changing to keep up with the shifting demographics. The leaders of EU see the problem and are trying to get their shit together, but the people of Europe really want nothing to do with it. Sadly, due to the EU's current structure it only takes one nation to throw the wrench into the gears of reform. I am deeply skeptical that the EU is going to pull itself together and deal with the challenges facing it.

China, India, and Russia while certainly having the man power to be rivals to the US, but really are too shackled with government control, bureaucracy, and corruption to ever hope to match the US in the next few decades. They are just too big and massive to change direction. Nothing short of a political revolution can fix these nations.

The Middle East is FAR too socially dysfunctional to even dream of matching the US. They will be lucky to make it through the next decade or two without suffering the collapse of multiple governments and a genocide or three.

Africa, while mostly screwed up, does have some bright spots of hope. They are very much behind the rest of the world, but so was Korea, Taiwan, and Japan for much of history. That said, they really have the deck stacked against them, and most of Africa is such a mess that they stand little chance of getting a toe hold in the world economy.

The only nation that can take down the US is the US. The US could very well find itself in a death cycle with unadaptive social programs like Western Europe under the right conditions. Some might argue that the US is inching its way in that direction, but at the pace it is going, it is going to be a long time before the US gets there.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

No one seems to have mentioned the UK. In terms of size it's not that dissimilar with Estonia, but it has a track record of running most of the world.

I reckon that running the world is more about leadership than raw power, and we're finding that out the hard way at the moment.

We managed to suppress Britain for a long time after WW2 - hell, we even charged them for it, and they've only just finished paying that off. But they still punch above their weight internationally. If they were to get together with Ca

Re:

[CmdrGravy]

All the UK needs to do is allow companies registered there the power to build armies, navies and air forces etc and carte blance to take what they like from any countries not specifically our allies and tax them a lot for the priviledge.

We'd be back on top in no time.

Re:

[drsquare]

Western European nations are in the process of shedding off more population then they can afford to dump due to low population growth and low immigration.

Low immigration? The issue in Western Europe today is that there's too much immigration.

Re:

[Shihar]

Almost all of Western Europe has either stagnant or shrinking populations. That isn't a sign of "too much" immigration. Western Europe's problem is that its social welfare system makes immigration a problem. Western Europe also struggles to assimilate immigration populations into their population. While it might be "too much" immigration for much of Western Europe's taste, it is certainly "too little" to keep Western Europe from developing some truly terrifying demographic problems that should be scarin

Re:

[Acer500]

China, India, and Russia while certainly having the man power to be rivals to the US, but really are too shackled with government control, bureaucracy, and corruption to ever hope to match the US in the next few decades. They are just too big and massive to change direction. Nothing short of a political revolution can fix these nations.

I find it interesting that you don't even mention Brazil, or Mexico. Well, they have the same problems as the above mentioned countries, so I don't count on them becoming superpowers either, but Brazil at least definitely wants to.

Re:

[feyhunde]

They are hitting Coal and Oil because it's cheap. However!

They are also investing a fortune in nuclear power. Pebble bed reactors, and so forth.

Re:

[pembo13]

That is really kind of sad

Fhtagn!, not Fthagn!

[mcvos]

And since we're flaming spelling anyway, the 'h' goes before the 't'.