It feels like there are mind-blowing science stories popping up every other day lately, all of which have blown our tiny minds.
First, a terrifying black hole was discovered pointing straight at us, then there was the discovery of a huge hole in the sun and a missing continent discovered after disappearing for 375 years.
Now people are only now realizing that there is a huge ocean hidden under the earth’s crust.
It turns out that there is a huge amount of water 400 miles underground, stored in a rock known as “ringudite”.
Scientists previously discovered that water is stored in mantle rock in a sponge-like state that is not a liquid, solid or gas, but instead a fourth state.
The scientific paper titled “Dehydration Melting in the Upper Lower Mantle” was published in 2014 and outlined the findings.
There is three times more water below the surface than in the oceansiStock
“Ringudite is like a sponge that soaks up water, there is something very special about the crystal structure of ringudite that allows it to attract hydrogen and trap water,” geophysicist Steve Jacobsen said at the time.
“This mineral can hold a lot of water in deep mantle conditions,” added Jacobsen, who was part of the team behind the discovery.
He added: “I think we are finally seeing evidence of an Earth-wide water cycle that may help explain the vast amount of liquid water on the surface of our habitable planet.” Scientists have been searching for this missing deep water for decades.”
Scientists made the findings at the time after studying earthquakes and discovering that seismometers pick up shock waves below the Earth’s surface.
From this they were able to determine that the water was held in the rock known as ringudite.
If the rock contained only 1 percent water, that would mean there was three times as much water under the Earth’s surface as in the surface oceans.
Have your say in our news democracy. Click the vote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article to the indy100 rankings.