Scientists Study 2.7 Billion Year-Old-Water from Canadian Shield
Posted on May 16, 2013
A team of scientists from the University of Toronto and Manchester University in the United Kingdom have gone three kilometers beneath the surface of the Canadian Shield to find 2.7 billion-year-old water for study. The scientists are able to calculate the age of the water by the noble gas isotopes from radiogenic reactions in the rock.
The discovery was published here in Nature. The image above shows U of T postdoctoral researcher K. Voglesanger measuring geochemistry of the deep fluids
Barbara Sherwood Lollar, a geochemist in U of T's Department of Earth Sciences, said in a statement, "The saline waters bubbling out of fractures in the rocks are not unlike the black smoker fluids found at deep sea hydrothermal vents. The water is the product of geochemical reactions with the rock and contains dissolved hydrogen, as well as noble gases - helium, neon, argon and particularly xenon - that have been trapped since early in Earth's history."
Lollar also says, "These are like trapped time capsules. They may tell us about the atmosphere 2.7 billion years ago, and about the fluids that formed the valuable ore deposits that are the foundation of Canada's mineral wealth."
This video shows sparkling water bubbles burbling up a borehole from 3 kilometers below the surface in the mine. Take a look:
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