The Oldest Water on Earth Found in Canadian Mine
What is believed to be the oldest water on Earth has been uncovered in a Canadian mine deep into the surface by scientist.
The discovery was made beneath a zinc and copper mine a mile and half underground and the water is estimated to be between 1.5 and 2.5 billion years old.
"We were expecting these fluids to be possibly tens, perhaps even hundreds of millions of years of age," said Chris Ballentine, a geochemist at the University of Manchester in the UK that was on site when the water was trapped, reports the Inquisiter.
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According to the journal, "Nature," there is no possible way free flowing water could have contacted that pool in over a "billion" years.
Ballentine believes the key ingredients for life in the theory of evolution are in the water, "secluded biomes, ecosystems, in which life, you can speculate, might have even originated."
"We're working on that right now," Sherwood Dollar, a scientist on the scene said regarding on the possibilities of finding life in the water. "It'd be fascinating to us if we did, since it'd push back the frontiers of how long life could survive in isolation."
"Nature" writes that the water is a big step in finding life on other planets and "raises the tantalizing possibility that ancient life might be found deep underground not only within Earth, but in similar oases that may exist on Mars."
The water contained helium, neon, argon, and xenon was saltier than ocean water leaving it undrinkable despite it's clear and untouched presence. "[The water] had chemistry in many ways similar to hydrothermal vents on the bottom of the ocean, full of dissolved hydrogen and other chemicals capable of supporting life," said Dollar reports, NBCNews.
