Was the Earth ever completely covered in water?
David - Was the Earth ever covered in water? Very definitely yes, if you’re prepared to accept water as the substance H2O. Because there have been times when the planet has been entirely covered by ice, that’s both the land masses and the oceans covered by ice from pole to equator.
How long ago was the earth covered in oceans?
Based on their findings, the researchers concluded that around 3.2 billion years ago, the Earth, which is currently 4.5 billion years ago, was once covered in vast oceans. Although supercontinents or large landmasses have started forming during that time, many of them were still underwater.
Was the earth covered in water at the time of Noah's flood?
In summary, when Johnson and Wing speak about the earth being totally covered in water at that time, we should not conclude they are referring to Noah’s Flood. The 3,200-Ma ‘date’ for the rocks puts them at the beginning of the Flood, which is far too early for the whole earth to be covered in water.
How much water exist on Earth?
The Earth is a watery place. But just how much water exists on, in, and above our planet? About 71 percent of the Earth's surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth's water.
How long did the Noah's Flood last?
How long ago did the Archaean rocks form?
What caused the Earth's crust to erupt?
How long after the flood did the Earth's waters start to sink?
What is the opposite of oxygen in the ocean?
Why is the biblical account of how God created supernaturally ignored?
What are some examples of events that are considered necessary to explain the origin and development of the Earth?
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Mystery of Earth's Water Origin Solved - Science
See for Yourself. Circling the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter in the main asteroid belt, Vesta is the second largest asteroid known and has an ancient, battered surface.
Was the Earth ever totally underwater? | Questions | Naked Scientists
David Rothery from the Open University took on Goeff's question...David - Was the Earth ever covered in water? Very definitely yes, if you’re prepared to accept water as the substance H2O. Because there have been times when the planet has been entirely covered by ice, that’s both the land masses and the oceans covered by ice from pole to equator.
Why is water important to life?
Water is critical to life as we know it, which is why researchers are studying how water cycles through the hydrosphere and how this precious resource can best be conserved. Viewed from space, our planet resembles a blue marble. That’s because the ocean covers 71 percent of Earth’s surface.
What is the role of the ocean in the water cycle?
The ocean is accordingly a major component of the hydrosphere, and it plays an important role in Earth’s water cycle. Over 96 percent of Earth’s water is in the ocean. As water evaporates from the ocean, it is transported into the atmosphere, where it falls back to Earth as rainfall.
What elements make up water?
It shows up in clouds of gas and dust peppered throughout the Milky Way. That’s perhaps not surprising because the elements that make up water—hydrogen and oxygen —are among the most common in the universe.
What happens when water falls over land?
The water that falls over land in the form of rain and snow has many fates: Some is absorbed into the ground and taken up by plants, like trees, and some flows into streams and rivers that eventually empty back into the ocean.
How many square miles of ice are there in the world?
area of fewer than 50,000 square kilometers (19,000 square miles) covered by ice.
Which planets have hydrospheres?
Other planets and moons in the solar system also have their own hydrospheres. For instance, there’s scientific evidence that Europa, a moon of Jupiter, contains an ocean of liquid water underneath its icy surface.
Where is the download button on a media viewer?
If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media. Text. Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service .
What would happen if the Earth was covered by oceans?
However, if the entire planet was covered by global oceans, this means that it didn’t have dry land that could support freshwater. “The history of life on Earth tracks available niches,” geobiologist Boswell Wing, the co-author of the study, explained. “If you've got a waterworld, a world covered by ocean, then dry niches are just not going ...
Why did landmasses emerge from the oceans?
The scientists believe that these landmasses only started emerging from the global oceans to become continents due to tectonic movements that pushed them out of the water. Unfortunately, it is not yet clear exactly when this global geological motion occurred.
How long ago was the Earth covered in oceans?
Based on their findings, the researchers concluded that around 3.2 billion years ago, the Earth, which is currently 4.5 billion years ago, was once covered in vast oceans. Although supercontinents or large landmasses have started forming during that time, many of them were still underwater. The scientists believe that these landmasses only started ...
How old were the rocks when they were discovered?
To do so, they measured the temperature of rocks that were about 3.2 billion years old. Based on their readings on the rocks, the scientists discovered that the rocks had features that indicated that they were once underneath ancient oceans.
What would have evolved differently if the Earth was under saltwater?
Life could have evolved differently if Earth was under saltwater. A new study has claimed that Earth was once covered by a global ocean, which made it into a real-life waterworld. This could have a major impact on current ideas about the evolution of life on the planet.
Was the Earth covered in water?
According to the scientists, discovering that Earth may have been covered in water was a bit of an accident. Originally, the scientists were trying to measure the temperature of Earth during its early years. To do so, they measured the temperature ...
Why did the mantle's water storage capacity increase over time?
The storage capacity of the mantle also began to increase over time due to olivine minerals crystallizing out of magma. As noted in the paper: The bulk water storage capacity of Earth’s solid mantle was significantly affected by secular cooling due to its constituent minerals’ temperature-dependent storage capacities.
What model constrains the volume of Earth's early oceans?
Source: Constraining the Volume of Earth’s Early Oceans With a Temperature-Dependent Mantle Water Storage Capacity Model
Why is the mantle hotter than it is today?
Because when the Earth was younger, the mantle was significantly hotter than it is today, which means that it had less storage capacity for water than it does now. The results indicated that both of those minerals have lower storage capacities for water at higher temperatures.
How did life begin on Earth?
Some scientists think it began in nutrient-rich hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. But other theories suggest shallow ponds of water on dry land, which frequently evaporated, creating a concentrated bath of chemicals. A global ocean is problematic for both scenarios. It could have diluted needed biomolecules in the ocean itself, and also made the shallow pools unlikely, since all or most of the land would have been submerged underwater. Thomas Carel l, a biochemist at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, offers a different possibility: watery pockets within oceanic rocks that broke the surface in volcanic seamounts. He said:
How does water affect the Earth's water cycle?
You probably learned in school that Earth’s water cycle is the continuous movement of water: from evaporation at the ocean surface to the atmosphere – to falling rain that fills rivers and lakes, contributes to glaciers, polar ice caps and reservoirs below ground – and, often much later on a human timescale, ends up in the oceans again. But we don’t as often think of the important role played by water in processes below ground. For example, water content in magma determines how explosive a volcano can be, and water plays an important role in the formation and migration of petroleum.
What is the form of water that is carried farther down into the mantle?
There, it hydrates igneous rocks, transform ing them into what are called hydrous minerals. It’s in this form that water is carried farther down into the mantle. Dong’s paper explained the thought processes his team used to conclude that Earth was once a water world:
When was the Earth's water most abundant?
It suggests that most of Earth’s water was on the surface at that time, during the Archean Eon between 2.5 and 4 billion years ago, with much less in the mantle. The planet’s surface may have been virtually completely covered by water, with no land masses at all. The new research was led by Junjie Dong at Harvard University.
How long ago was the ocean covered with liquid water?
But if you go back about 3 billion years ago, there wasn’t much continental crust, maybe just a few ocean islands. So virtually the whole planetary surface would have been covered by liquid water at those times when it wasn’t frozen. So, very deep in the past a few islands in amongst the global oceans. That’s as close as we get to ...
When was the Ice House World Conditions?
These are called the ice house world conditions, the most recent of which was about 635 million years ago so just before large amounts of multi-cellular life. Extreme climate events covering the Earth in solid water - yes. The questioner was probably thinking about liquid water.
Is liquid water a part of the planet?
But if you go back about 3 billion years ago, there wasn’t much continental crust, maybe just a few ocean islands. So virtually the whole planetary surface would have been covered by liquid water at those times when it wasn’t frozen. So, very deep in the past a few islands in amongst the global oceans. That’s as close as we get to a planet we get covered in liquid water.
Was the Earth ever covered in water?
David - Was the Earth ever covered in water? Very definitely yes, if you’re prepared to accept water as the substance H2O. Because there have been times when the planet has been entirely covered by ice, that’s both the land masses and the oceans covered by ice from pole to equator. These are called the ice house world conditions, the most recent of which was about 635 million years ago so just before large amounts of multi-cellular life. Extreme climate events covering the Earth in solid water - yes.
Can water worlds exist elsewhere?
Can they occur elsewhere? Yes, there are certainly many worlds in this solar system - moons of Jupiter and Saturn which are ice at the surface, rock underneath, and maybe an ocean sandwiched in between. But to go to bodies covered in liquid water, well these are known as water worlds. Probably from the science fiction movie but it’s an obvious term. We think planets that are rocky but have a greater mass than the Earth (twice to ten times the mass of the Earth) are going to have so much water as well. But by the time the water’s squeezed out of the rock, it’s going to be such a deep ocean that you’ll never have land masses sticking above the surface.
Do planets have water?
We think planets that are rocky but have a greater mass than the Earth (twice to ten times the mass of the Earth) are going to have so much water as well . But by the time the water’s squeezed out of the rock, it’s going to be such a deep ocean that you’ll never have land masses sticking above the surface.
How long ago did Earth start to form?
Around 4.5 billion years ago, high-speed collisions between dust and space rocks formed the beginnings of our planet: a bubbling, molten sphere of magma that was thousands of miles deep. Earth cooled as it spun; eventually, after 1,000 to 1 million years, the cooling magma formed the first mineral crystals in Earth's crust.
What did the Earth look like 3.2 billion years ago?
What did Earth look like 3.2 billion years ago? New evidence suggests the planet was covered by a vast ocean and had no continents at all. Continents appeared later, as plate tectonics thrust enormous, rocky land masses upward to breach the sea surfaces, scientists recently reported.
How many years ago did the ocean hold more oxygen than oxygen?
However, the scientists uncovered something unexpected through their analysis of more than 100 sediment samples. They found that 3.2 billion years ago, oceans held more oxygen-18 than oxygen-16 (the latter is more common in the modern ocean).
What happens when Earth is a magma ocean?
When Earth was a hot magma ocean, water vapor and gasses escaped into the atmosphere. "It then rained out from the atmosphere as conditions got cool enough," said lead study author Benjamin Johnson, an assistant professor in the Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences at Iowa State University.
How old was the Earth at the time?
Editor’s note: The headline of this article was updated on March 3 to correct the age of a continent-free Earth; while the evidence in this study dates to more than 3 billion years ago, Earth at that time was only 1.5 billion years old, not 3 billion years old. Originally published on Live Science.
How much uncertainty do we have about cosmological time?
Could you take your evangelizing erroneous superstition somewhere else than on science sites? For instance, we do know cosmological time at 0.15 % uncertainty, while suoerstition know nothing or false (as here).
Where do stromatolites occur?
There are 3.7 billion year-old sedimentary rocks with evidence of life, stromatolites with cyanobacteria releasing free oxygen. They occur in Greenland, not in Western Australia.
How much water does a gallon of paint pollute?
A gallon of paint or a quart of motor oil can seep into the earth and pollute 250,000 gallons of drinking water.
How much water does a leaky toilet waste?
That's 65 glasses of water every day for a year. A leaky toilet can waste over 22,000 gallons of water in one year; enough to take three baths every day.
How many gallons of water does the average human have?
In actuality, that amounts to an average of 8.4 million liters (2.2 million gallons) for each person on earth.
What is the source of fresh water?
Sources of Fresh Water. Groundwater - water which infiltrates into the ground through porous materials deeper into the earth. It fills pores and fractures in layers of underground rock called aquifers. Some of this water lies too far under the earth's surface to be extracted at an affordable cost.
How much water is available on Earth?
In actuality, that amounts to an average of 8.4 million liters (2.2 million gallons) for each person on earth.
What percentage of the Earth's fresh water is unavailable?
2.5% of the earth's fresh water is unavailable: locked up in glaciers, polar ice caps, atmosphere, and soil; highly polluted; or lies too far under the earth's surface to be extracted at an affordable cost.
What percentage of water is used for cooling electric power plants?
80% of water withdrawn in the U.S. is used for cooling electric power plants and for irrigation.
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This item was discussed on Monday on Answers News with cohosts Dr. Gabriela Haynes, Ken Ham, and Roger Patterson. Answers News is our weekly news program filmed live before a studio audience here at the Creation Museum and broadcast on my Facebook page and the Answers in Genesis Facebook page. We also covered the following topics:
How long did the Noah's Flood last?
The Flood lasted a little more than a year. After the Archaean rocks were formed, there was still an enormous amount of catastrophic geologic activity that continued to take place during the Flood. Movements in the earth’s crust caused great volcanic eruptions and metamorphosed rocks. Water eroded the pre-Flood continents and deposited vast volumes of sediment into the pre-Flood oceans. The floodwaters continued to rise and rise on the earth, and the original continents were eventually inundated. It was about 150 days after the Flood began that the waters covered the whole earth. From our analysis of the long-age scheme, the water of Noah’s Flood would have covered the whole world about 65 million years ago according to their ‘dates’. After that, the ocean basins began to sink, the present continents began to rise, and the floodwaters receded from the continents into the ocean.
How long ago did the Archaean rocks form?
Specifically, the Archaean rocks that Johnson and Wing are speaking about would have formed about 4,500 years ago, in the first few weeks of Noah’s Flood. 4 Being so early in the Flood means that the floodwaters were only beginning to rise.
What caused the Earth's crust to erupt?
Movements in the earth’s crust caused great volcanic eruptions and metamorphosed rocks. Water eroded the pre-Flood continents and deposited vast volumes of sediment into the pre-Flood oceans. The floodwaters continued to rise and rise on the earth, and the original continents were eventually inundated. It was about 150 days after the Flood began ...
How long after the flood did the Earth's waters start to sink?
It was about 150 days after the Flood began that the waters covered the whole earth. From our analysis of the long-age scheme, the water of Noah’s Flood would have covered the whole world about 65 million years ago according to their ‘dates’. After that, the ocean basins began to sink, the present continents began to rise, ...
What is the opposite of oxygen in the ocean?
Johnson and Wing analysed the oxygen isotope content of more than 100 rock samples and found they contained more oxygen-18 than oxygen-16, which is the opposite to the oxygen in modern oceans. Their theoretical calculations hinted that without continents the oceans would carry more oxygen-18 on a global scale, which is why they announced there were no continents above the ocean at that time.
Why is the biblical account of how God created supernaturally ignored?
No God is allowed, and the biblical account of how God created supernaturally is ignored, because it does not fit into their belief system.
What are some examples of events that are considered necessary to explain the origin and development of the Earth?
Examples of such events include: the earth coalescing from meteorites, the formation of the moon, the iron catastrophe and formation of the core, the origin of the magnetic field, the origin of the oceans, the onset of plate tectonics, the origin of the continents, the origin of life, the great oxygenation event, the origin of the eukaryote cell, the origin of multicellular life, and many more. Each of these invented ‘events’ has a life of its own. The story is so pervasive in our culture and presented in such an authoritative way that it gives the impression that it is fact. But it is not. It is 100% an invention of the human mind. None of the events, processes, or timings described has been observed. The scheme is total speculation, full of unknowns, involves lots of assumptions, has innumerable contradictions, is vigorously debated, and is continually changing.
