Was Earth’s Water Always Here? Unexpected Meteorite Composition Provides Origin Evidence - SciTechDaily

However, was this water always present in the rocks that made up our planet.

In the journal Science, scientists from the Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques in Nancy (CNRS/Université de Lorraine) contribute to this debate by showing that most of the water present on the Earth today has probably been there right from the very beginning.

Using two complementary techniques, they measured their content in hydrogen and determined precisely where part of this was located.

Their results show that the Earth’s primitive rocks probably contained enough water to provide at least three times the amount of water in the Earth’s oceans, and possibly much more.

In addition, the hydrogen in these meteorites has the same isotopic composition[2] as that of the water stored in the Earth’s mantle, while the isotopic composition of the oceans is consistent with a mixture containing 95% of water from the enstatite chondrites and a mere 5% of water delivered by comets or water-rich asteroids.

Reference: “Earth’s water may have been inherited from material similar to enstatite chondrite meteorites” by Laurette Piani, Yves Marrocchi, Thomas Rigaudier, Lionel G.

September 9, 2020

September 9, 2020

September 9, 2020

September 9, 2020

September 9, 2020

September 9, 2020

September 9, 2020