In the event you got here throughout water that was greater than two billion years previous, what would you do? Would you be tempted to drink it immediately? After discovering the planet’s oldest water, one scientist really did that.
Apparently, in 2016, a group from the College of Toronto, led by Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar, made a tremendous discovery whereas investigating a Canadian mine.
The water supply they found was between 1.5 billion and a couple of.64 billion years previous, based on the examine’s checks. It was the oldest factor ever found on Earth, contemplating how remoted it was.
Apparently, the checks additionally revealed that there was as soon as life within the water.
Professor Sherwood Lollar stated in an interview with BBC Information that when folks take into consideration this water, they presume it should be a minute quantity of water trapped inside the rock.
“However in reality, it’s totally a lot effervescent proper up out at you. This stuff are flowing at charges of litres per minute; the amount of the water is way bigger than anybody anticipated.”
Discussing the presence of life within the water, Sherwood Lollar added: “By trying on the sulphate within the water, we have been capable of see a fingerprint that is indicative of the presence of life.”
The professor continued: “And we have been capable of point out that the sign we’re seeing within the fluids has to have been produced by microbiology and, most significantly, has to have been produced over a really very long time scale.”
Whereas hinting on the age of the water, she stated: “The microbes that produced this signature could not have accomplished it in a single day. This must be a sign that organisms have been current in these fluids on a geological timescale.”
Folks can go to extraordinary lengths to fulfill their curiosity, particularly scientists, and doing simply that, the professor additionally revealed that she tried the water for herself.
“In the event you’re a geologist who works with rocks, you have in all probability licked numerous rocks,” Sherwood Lollar instructed CNN.
Nevertheless, the true query is: how would it not have tasted? Did it have a scent? Did it turn out to be slimy?
She revealed that the water was “very salty and bitter” and “a lot saltier than seawater.” Does her revelation now tempt you to drink water that’s greater than a billion years previous?