Huge Underground "Ocean" Found Beneath Asia

National Geographic ^ | 2-27-2007 | Richard A Lovett

[blam]

Huge Underground "Ocean" Found Beneath Asia

Richard A. Lovett
for National Geographic News

February 27, 2007

A giant blob of water the size of the Arctic Ocean has been discovered hundreds of miles beneath eastern Asia, scientists report.

Researchers found the underground "ocean" while scanning seismic waves as they passed through Earth's interior.

But nobody will be exploring this sea by submarine. The water is locked in moisture-containing rocks 400 to 800 miles (700 to 1,400 kilometers) beneath the surface.

"I've gotten all sorts of emails asking if this is the water that burst out in Noah's flood," said the leader of the research team, Michael Wysession of Washington University in St. Louis.

"It isn't an ocean. [The water] is a very low percentage [of the rock], probably less than 0.1 percent."

Given the region's size, however, that's enough to add up to a vast amount of water.

Earthquakes Reveal "Ocean"

Wysession and former graduate student Jesse Lawrence discovered the damp spot by observing how seismic waves from distant earthquakes pass through Earth's mantle.

The wet zone, which runs from Indonesia to the northern tip of Russia, showed up as an area of relatively weak rock, causing the seismic waves to lose strength much more rapidly than elsewhere (see map of Asia.)

[blam]

[Paleo Conservative]

So if you dig a long enough hole, you'll drown before you reach China?

[blam]

Map Of Asia

[verum ago]

nah- it'll just get a bit steamy.

and on that note, I propose naming this new phenomenon the 'saunasphere'

[Jeff Chandler]

Headline:

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER WET SPOT

You can take it from there.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Somehow, this must have been caused by global warming.

[ConservaTexan]

Huge Underground "Ocean" Found Beneath Asia

There goes my nougat center theory!

[Arkinsaw]

So Russia is laying in the wet spot is what I'm hearing here?

[Buck W.]

I just bought a tour package to the new ocean on Travelocity.

[bubman]

No by GWB!!

[fso301]

I remember a Japanese scientist reporting a similar finding perhaps 10 years ago. I seem to remember the submarine ocean being beneath japan at a depth of a bout 200 miles.

[Doohickey]

It isn't an ocean.

Which apparently didn't impress the author enough to get him to quit referring to it as one.

[pax_et_bonum]

If this isn't proof of global warming, I don't know what is.

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

Researchers found the underground "ocean" while scanning seismic waves as they passed through Earth's interior.

Would be interesting to read an account of the adventures of the researchers as they passed through the Earth's interior. Must have been quite a trip.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Very interesting.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Mr. Wysession handled the Flood questions pretty cordially (at least in this article), considering he is probably not a Creationist.

[Robert A. Cook, PE]

800 (hundred !) miles down?

And he still calls it "water" - this is well under the (thin) continent rocks ... So I'd call anything surrounded by rocks hot enough to melt "moist lava" not a "ocean".

Can I get the drilling contract to (funded by global warming research money) to pump CO2 into this rock formation from our power plants in the US?) 8<)

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Also, dunes of sand in the Gobi Desert are supposed to be saturated with water some distance below the surface, sort of anchoring them they don't move are much as dunes in the Sahara.

[edh]

"So if you dig a long enough hole, you'll drown before you reach China?"

Yep...and Cyndi Lauper was obviously lying when she said that she "has a hole in her heart that goes all the way to China".

[sphinx]

So if you dig a long enough hole, you'll drown before you reach China?

I'll let you know when my daughters get there. They've been digging for China for three years at the beach.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Hypothetically, if a hole was dug through the diameter of the world (so from the United States, the hole would open someplace in the southern hemisphere near the Indian Ocean), if a guy jumped in, wouldn't he sort of get stuck in the middle rather than pop out the other end?

[albee]

headline..... Huge Underground "Ocean" Found Beneath Asia

So that's where I left it!

[BenLurkin]

Can Mars have this kind of formation sub-surface?

[JewishRighter]

ROTFL!

I thought the same thing!

[Deaf Smith]

"Can I get the drilling contract to"

I don't think you could find a BOP big enough to contain the pressures. BOP's that size are the mountains that volcanoes form.

[sphinx]

I never thought of that. I'll have to equip the girls with anti-gravity boots before they jump through their hole.

[ThreePuttinDude]

Can I get the drilling contract to ....

Haliburton already has those contracts locked up.....LOL

[Rb ver. 2.0]

""It isn't an ocean. [The water] is a very low percentage [of the rock], probably less than 0.1 percent.""

But that didn't stop the author from using "Ocean" in the title.

[aft_lizard]

Must have been there first time...

[fish hawk]

Puts a new slant on surfing down under.

[aft_lizard]

Well by the time he got to the middle he would of melted away, if that wouldnt have happened gravity would crush him to a pretty small size and then instead of winging it out the other side you would circle endlessly in the center.

[Fierce Allegiance]

You'd need some really lightweight drill rod and would still need a hell of a lot of holdback.

[MaxMax]

Graveyard for Icebergs.
Shhhh, don't tell gore.

[editor-surveyor]

"Mr. Wysession handled the Flood questions pretty cordially (at least in this article), considering he is probably not a Creationist."

I think that his answer indicates that he either is a creationist, or at the least has studied the issue sufficiently to understand all the implications of the question.

[Bernard Marx]

"In Xanadu did Kublai Khan

A stately pleasure dome decree,

Where Alph, the sacred river ran,

Down to a sunless sea..."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

[editor-surveyor]

And he still calls it "water"

Consider the pressure; It can't be vapor, that's for sure.

[metmom]

ping

[blam]

BBC: Concrete 'to stem Java mud flow' ~~ An attempt to stop flow of Mud from deep underground ...

[MHGinTN]

Remind me again how deep go the continents drifting in plate tectonics. ... Are these 'wet rocks' at the boundaries or interiors of plates?

[TASMANIANRED]

Guess they found the water table.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Fresh or salt water?

[Central Scrutiniser]

I've gotten all sorts of emails asking if this is the water that burst out in Noah's flood," said the leader of the research team, Michael Wysession of Washington University in St. Louis

Wow, just when you thought Americans couldn't be dumber about science....

[thackney]

I don't know what is.

That's okay, neither does Al Gore. It just hasn't slowed him down in proclaiming it.

[thackney]

if that wouldnt have happened gravity would crush him to a pretty small size

Nope, in the center gravity forces would be zero. You would have equal pull in all directions so you would be weightless.

[aft_lizard]

But getting there is a different story.

[Mr J]

Yes, suspended at the gravitational center of the earth, IMO.

[Mr J]

Huge Underground "Ocean" Found Beneath Asia

"It isn't an ocean."

How about those headline writers?

[Robert A. Cook, PE]

But remember the difference between "gravity" ( a force caused the difference in mass above you and below you) and "pressure" the squishing sense of being extruded into rocky crystals like diamonds by a force of 100,000 of tons per sq millimeter by all of the (very heavy) rocks above you.

So, yes, if you could get a protected hollow sphere into the exact center of gravity of the middle of the earth you might be weightless (except for the moon's and sun's pull) but you might have a problem opening the door of your sphere to get out ...

[NicknamedBob]

Let's hope the crafty Chinee don't try to tap into a new geothermal energy source.

The sudden release of pressure could be, in a word, cataclysmic.

"... the squishing sense of being extruded into rocky crystals like diamonds by a force of 100,000 of tons per sq millimeter ..."

Yeah, I hate when that happens. It can ruin your whole day.