Canadian expert tells the story of 'dose' drinking ancient water 2.64 billion years old: Very strange taste!

Water cycle

Water is the most abundant substance on Earth and is also the only common substance that exists as solid, bed and gas on the Earth's surface. Although the scientific community still has no definite answer to the question "Where does the water on Earth come from?" But one thing is for sure, water has existed on our planet for a long time. Because fossil evidence has shown that life on Earth began at least 3.5 billion years ago. And water is the source of life.

The sun causes the water in the oceans to heat up and evaporates the water into the atmosphere. Gases rise and carry water vapor into the atmosphere, where the temperature is lower, the water vapor condenses into clouds. Moving air currents carry clouds around the globe. Cloud particles collide with each other, combine to increase in size and fall to form rain.

Water cycle on Earth.

Rainwater in the form of snow accumulates into snow mountains and glaciers, causing water to freeze for thousands of years. As the air gets warmer, the snow melts and flows in streams, sometimes in floods. A large amount of rainwater falls on the ground, thanks to gravity, it becomes surface runoff into rivers and from rivers to the ocean. However, there is also a large amount of water infiltrating into the ground, it is retained in the layer close to the ground and is seeped back into the surface water as underground runoff. Part of groundwater flows into streams, part is absorbed by plant roots and then transpiration through leaves.

It can be said that this is the water cycle on the Earth's surface. Therefore, scientists say, it is difficult to find where the first water source is stored. They hypothesized that we might find the first water on Earth underground. Because in fact, a large amount of water has been seeped into the ground. And it is possible that this water was trapped underground due to the movement of the Earth's crust. In this case, this water can be preserved for a long time if it is stored in a special soil environment with low permeability.

Ancient water 2.64 billion years old found

From this hypothesis, scientists from the University of Toronto decided to conduct a search in a deep underground mine. The place they chose is the Kidd Creek mine, which has been in operation since 1966, near the city of Timmins, Ontario, Canada. Accordingly, it took the research team many years to find the liquid between the rocks in the mine. They have determined that this is ancient water.

The team found ancient water 2.64 billion years old beneath the Kidd Creek mine. (Photo: Baidu)

For the first time, a team led by geologist Barbara Sherwood Lollar visited the Kidd Creek mine in 1992. By 2013, her team had descended 2.4 kilometers below the surface and found ancient water. After 7 years, they continued to venture down to a distance of 3 km below the ground and also found an ancient amount of water.

The researchers radioisotope dating of this ancient water combined with a comprehensive analysis of the elements, they concluded that the "age" of this ancient water is up to 2.64 billion years. The evidence is that in this ancient water, they found sulfate-reducing bacteria, one of the oldest forms of bacteria (up to 3.5 billion years old) that contributed to the sulfur-forming cycle on Earth. Earth after life appeared.

"Dose" of drinking ancient water

From this clue, scientists believe that this ancient water may be the oldest water source in the world. Due to the age, this ancient water has a slightly cloudy color mixed with orange impurities. To know the taste of this water that is more than 2 billion years old, Dr. Oliver Warr decided to taste it without any sterilization method.

Although Dr. Oliver Warr is not in any danger, but according to his reflection, this ancient water more than 2 billion years old has a very strange taste, it is very salty and has a stench. In fact, this experience of his can be explained, because over the past 2 billion years, the water in the mine has undergone countless physical and chemical reactions with the surrounding substances. Large amounts of these substances were dissolved in water. Over time, the mineral content in this water is unusually high and contains many different impurities, so it tastes like the one described above.

Ancient water 2.64 billion years old is cloudy and mixed with orange impurities.

In addition, the orange impurities in ancient water are due to the fact that when it was exposed to the air after being brought to the surface, the minerals inside were oxidized. This gave the water such a strange color.

After comparing with research data obtained from Mars, researchers believe that finding this ancient water sample has been of great help to them. Previous studies have found evidence of an active groundwater system on Mars. So, this discovery not only helps scientists figure out the origin of water on Earth, but also shows signs of present-day life in the Martian surface.

Besides, this is also good news for future human space explorations because we can already find the necessary supplies more easily. Typically, astronauts will be able to find water on their own without having to carry it on the journey.