Scientists Found the Sixth Ocean on Earth

Bright Side

Scientists just made the most groundbreaking discovery! They found what they're calling the sixth ocean on Earth, but it's not on the surface. This massive reservoir of water is hidden deep underground, beneath the Earth's crust. It's trapped in a layer of rock called ringwoodite, which is located about 400 miles down in the mantle. What's even crazier is that this underground ocean holds as much water as all the surface oceans combined. It completely changes our understanding of Earth's water and where it might be hiding!

Transcript

00:00Our planet has five oceans.

00:02The Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, and Arctic.

00:06Not counting Billy Ocean.

00:09But it seems there's a sixth one out there too.

00:11It's just that you can't see it.

00:14Scientists have found evidence of large amounts of water hidden in the transition zone.

00:19That's the boundary layer that separates the upper and lower mantle of our planet.

00:23That boundary goes hundreds of miles deep down below the surface.

00:28Natural diamonds usually form in the mantle, but at depths of up to 155 miles.

00:34Some of them are very rare.

00:36They may come from deeper depths.

00:38That was the case with this fascinating diamond that formed 410 miles below the surface.

00:44The gem was big enough for scientists to study it and determine what it was made of.

00:48They were surprised when the composition of this very rare diamond

00:52showed that it was formed in pretty watery conditions.

00:56Because of that, such a diamond wouldn't be worth much in jewelry stores.

01:00But it was priceless in the lab.

01:03So, could this mean there's an ocean under the surface of our planet?

01:07It would definitely get us closer to the idea Jules Verne had about this whole magical secret world inside Earth.

01:15Including the ocean.

01:16But that's not exactly the case.

01:18The water is there, true.

01:21But it's not like you can enjoy the view watching waves splashing around like on the surface of our planet.

01:27The water is actually stored within the minerals.

01:30That's why this area is so wet.

01:33Let's now move to Africa to keep up with the story.

01:35Or, to be more specific, to a spot called the Afar region.

01:40It's part of Ethiopia and a place where three tectonic plates meet.

01:44Tectonic plates are large pieces of our planet's crust that slowly move.

01:50These movements cause earthquakes and produce volcanoes, mountains, deep underwater valleys we call trenches, and so on.

01:57And the Afar Valley is where the Arabian, Somali, and Nubian plates meet.

02:03Together, they form an intersection in the shape of a Y.

02:06Why? Let me tell you.

02:08These plates are moving all the time.

02:12The Somali plate is moving southeast toward the Australian and Indian plates.

02:16The Arabian plate is moving north, getting closer to the Eurasian plate.

02:21At some point, it will close the Persian Gulf.

02:24This movement of plates has created something we call the Great Rift Valley.

02:29Considering there are, you know, all these cool rifts.

02:32The Aden Ridge to the east, the Red Sea Rift to the west, the Oculus Rift, and the East African Rift to the south.

02:40But the East African Rift is something we want to focus on, because this one could be the key to this potential sixth ocean.

02:48But this time, on the surface.

02:50A continental rift is a spot where two tectonic plates that form a single continent start to separate.

02:57Here, it's the Somali and Nubian plates.

03:00Together, they're parts that make up Africa.

03:03If they keep moving in separate directions, this currently continental rift may become what we call an oceanic spreading ridge.

03:11In other words, when the plates are far enough apart from each other, there will be an enormous crack between them.

03:18This way, magma will freely flow up from beneath them.

03:22It'll be cool and eventually start creating a new ocean floor.

03:25Africa will be split into two parts, and there will be a new ocean flowing between what will turn into two mini-continents.

03:34Nope, it's not time to get your swim trunks and sunscreen yet.

03:38Even if the Somali and Arabian plates do move far enough to form an oceanic spreading ridge,

03:44it'll take, eh, millions of years before this happens.

03:47So I guess it's more interesting to stick to exploring this sixth ocean below the Earth's surface for now.

03:53The idea of subsurface oceans goes beyond the borders of our planet.

03:59It's possible many moons and planets out there have them too.

04:03Our home planet is the only one we know about with consistent bodies of liquid water on the surface, true.

04:09In our solar system, we circle around the Sun in something called the habitable zone.

04:15The temperature and atmospheric pressure within this zone allow water to remain in liquid form all the time.

04:22But a couple of moons in our solar system could also contain significant amounts of water under their surface.

04:30Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, is the first one.

04:33Enceladus is a small frozen ball, seven times smaller in diameter than our moon.

04:39But it's the sixth biggest moon of Saturn.

04:42Nearly a decade ago, a spacecraft found evidence that there was a large ocean under its surface.

04:49It found and sampled water from the eruptions that resembled geysers.

04:53A geyser is a rare type of hot spring that erupts and sends jets of steam and water into the air.

04:59You know, like Old Faithful in Yellowstone?

05:02Well, this water was erupting through fissures in the ice at the south pole of the Moon.

05:07That means there might be a liquid ocean under the thick layers of ice.

05:12The ocean there is almost nothing like ours.

05:15The ocean on Earth is relatively shallow, on average 2.2 miles deep.

05:20And it covers three-quarters of our planet's surface.

05:23It gets colder the closer you come to the seafloor,

05:26and is warmer if you stay close to the surface because of the Sun's rays.

05:30But the subsurface ocean on Enceladus is at least 18 miles deep.

05:37It's cooler at the top because that part is near the ice shell,

05:41and warmer at the bottom because of the heat coming from the Moon's core.

05:45But both our ocean and the ocean on Enceladus are salty.

05:50Enceladus is one of the few places in our solar system that has liquid water,

05:54which makes it an interesting spot to search for signs of life.

05:59Another one is Europa, one of Jupiter's moons.

06:02Scientists think similar eruptions of water could be happening there.

06:07Knowing there are such geysers there tells us these moons have their own source of energy.

06:12Maybe the energy that makes the water erupt comes from gravity or radiation.

06:17The same energy could keep a large body of liquid water under the ice.

06:22It could even support some forms of life.

06:25There are thousands of planets beyond our solar system that orbit other stars.

06:30Some are even in the habitable zone.

06:33Over a quarter of the ones that we know about could have liquid water.

06:37But the majority of them probably have oceans under their surface,

06:41like Enceladus and Europa.

06:43Pluto might be on this list too, since it's possible it hides a liquid ocean under its thick frozen shell.

06:51This subsurface ocean likely formed long after the dwarf planet did,

06:55after the heat coming from radioactive elements in Pluto's core melted some of its ice.

07:01There's also something called water worlds.

07:04Those are moons or planets with global oceans that are more common than we thought.

07:09I mean, some call Earth a water world too.

07:1271% of its surface is water, after all.

07:16And when you look at our home planet from space, you mostly get those blue marble pictures.

07:22When exploring other planets, especially those outside of our solar system,

07:27researchers often go with a policy of follow the water.

07:31After all, water is the main element we know that's necessary for supporting life.

07:36And when there's a water world that's close to its parent star,

07:40scientists assume it must have formed way farther and then moved closer once its orbit shrank.

07:47The composition of the planet was set when it was in a colder orbit,

07:51or, in other words, when it made a wider circle around its star.

07:55We call the process of orbital shrinking a migration.

07:58And if water worlds are really that common, it can be proof that migration really happens.

08:06Exoplanets are all those planets that orbit around other stars, not our sun.

08:11Some exoplanets may have oceans that are way deeper than any of those in our solar system.

08:16Hundreds or even thousands of miles deep.

08:19Our Mariana Trench is scary, and it's not even 7 miles deep.

08:24And those exoplanet oceans are, wow, almost bottomless.

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