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emanuel
USA
151 Posts |
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Dangus
USA
133 Posts |
 Posted - 05 Apr 2006 : 00:13:42
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Earth does have a lot of water relative to other planets, and I am curious about that as well. That said, a lot of water on the surface doesn't necessarily = a large percentage of water. Compared to the total volume and mass of the Earth, as I understand it, water is a pretty small portion.
I suspect it has something to do with the temperature of Earth, the thickness and composition of our atmosphere, and our position relative to the sun....
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"Regret can only change the future" -Me
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." Frank Herbert, Dune 1965 |
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Jim
1607 Posts |
Posted - 05 Apr 2006 : 16:58:10
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| You have a real good question here. I think the standard answer is comets did it but it seems to me a better answer can be found by looking at the atmosphere of Venus as a good example of how the atmosphere of Earth was 4 or 5 billion years ago. Earth must have an atmosphere much like the atmosphere now on Venus. Earth evolved because it has enough mass and is far enough from the sun to capture and hold hydrogen. Venus can't do that trick so water is out of the process on Venus. As you know water is made of hydrogen and oxygen and if hydrogen can excape then water can't exist. This detail is unknown to science at this time as are other very simple facts. |
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emanuel
USA
151 Posts |
Posted - 05 Apr 2006 : 18:04:00
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Thanks Jim. So as I understand you the earth "captured" and then retained hydrogen, which over time combined with oxygen to form water. So where did the hydrogen come from?
Emanuel |
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Jim
1607 Posts |
Posted - 05 Apr 2006 : 18:52:53
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| I don't really know what happened since I wasn't there. So my perspective is just one idea. The comet solution does nothing for me so I keep looking as you seem to do. Anyway, the hydrogen could have been in the mix when the planet formed and cooled in the form of water. Or not. It could have been captured over time from the solar wind which is mostly hydrogen. I never did the math on this detail but it seems like a good as any solution if you need one. Although it might be somewhat like a solution a parent gives when the child asks about the birds and bees. I don't know and can't give you an authorative answer because I'm not well versed in theories about how plants are whipped up out of dust. And don't believe them anyway. |
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jrich
USA
287 Posts |
Posted - 06 Apr 2006 : 00:43:06
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quote:
Originally posted by Jim
You have a real good question here. I think the standard answer is comets did it but it seems to me a better answer can be found by looking at the atmosphere of Venus as a good example of how the atmosphere of Earth was 4 or 5 billion years ago. Earth must have an atmosphere much like the atmosphere now on Venus. Earth evolved because it has enough mass and is far enough from the sun to capture and hold hydrogen. Venus can't do that trick so water is out of the process on Venus. As you know water is made of hydrogen and oxygen and if hydrogen can excape then water can't exist. This detail is unknown to science at this time as are other very simple facts.
Water is relatively abundant in the solar system. What is rarer is liquid water because the conditions for its existence and persistence is rare. Many types of asteroids have a considerable percentage of their mass as water in the form of hydrates so the comet/asteroid bombardment theory isn't totally implausible. Of course, it begs the questions where did the asteroids come from and where did they get their water?
JR |
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MarkVitrone
USA
386 Posts |
Posted - 06 Apr 2006 : 13:03:03
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Another more plausible solutions lies in two facts that make earth special in the solar system.
Fact 1: The most plentiful anion in minerals is oxygen. It can be released as oxygen gas through volcanic activities, this is common on earth.
Fact 2: Earth is surrounded by a strong magnetic field which prevents the sun from blowing away an atmosphere where escaping volcanic oxygen was able to combine with the original hydrogen atmosphere to create water vapor which then rained down on earth.
Mark Vitrone |
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Jim
1607 Posts |
Posted - 06 Apr 2006 : 16:13:29
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| How do you know the early atmosphere was rich in hydrogen? Hydrogen is the most active element and combines very easily with all the common elements found on Earth except iron and aluminium. The early atmosphere must have been ~95% carbon dioxide and any hydorgen would have been bonded to carbon or oxygen. Liquid water requires pressure to exist which is why it is not found on Mars or the moon-not enough atmosphere to cause pressure that is high enough for liquid water. Water does exist in vacuum as vapor or solid. |
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Peter Nielsen
Australia
183 Posts |
Posted - 06 Apr 2006 : 23:53:52
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H2O is abundant throughout the Universe, in cooler regions, not too close to stars, because Hydrogen is the most abundant element of all, with Oxygen 3rd, or close to 3rd most abundant element, because it is a key catalyst in the fusion of Main Sequence stars.
H2O would thus be ubiquitous in all planetary systems, in the Solar System from the very beginning. Earth is not as small as the moon and Mars, but still fairly small so would have lost much of its original H2O into space, as they did, but much H2O has been retained on Earth because Earth's big enough, and not too hot, as Jim wrote, and has a protective magnetic field, as MV wrote. |
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emanuel
USA
151 Posts |
Posted - 07 Apr 2006 : 23:06:29
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Thanks everyone. This is very interesting.
Emanuel
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Peter Nielsen
Australia
183 Posts |
Posted - 09 Apr 2006 : 20:19:19
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Emanuel,
What's your interest in Earth's water? Is it because water is the basis of life as we know it, sacred to many religions? I ask because I was very interested in Earth's unique (in the Solar System) oceanic water also.
Indeed, I couldn't have produced my ebook at www.nodrift without it. I explained much Geology in terms of water's "Freeze Effect", in an imagined scenario of global fracture-melt and faultlining by super huge impacts, paper 3.3, page 4.
I looked for and found symmetries in the "cratered" appearance of Earth, Mars and the Moon indicating such events as ubiquitous(demonstrated in w.1.pps). The Freeze Effect of water seems to have acted as an important preservative of landform shock wave origin symmetries. Water apparently penetrates down into faultines faster, generally, than magmas, lavas ascend. Hence, ultimately, my "Planetary Meta-Geology".
Symmetries are characteristic of wave interference patterns, the waves in this case, producing faultlines are, of course shock waves, super huge shock waves for a week or two, super huge tidal waves for longer, super huge geysers for longer still.
These all persisted long enough, apparently, to have produced an effective Freeze Effect, globally on Earth, even on Mars and the Moon (by melting permafrost globally?!?), consistent with my last post, and recent observations. |
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Dangus
USA
133 Posts |
Posted - 12 Apr 2006 : 06:51:58
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Peter, that doesn't really answer how water got here and stayed here in such large quantities, only what it did to the planet once it was here. It seems more like an attempt to yet again pimp your site....
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"Regret can only change the future" -Me
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." Frank Herbert, Dune 1965 |
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Peter Nielsen
Australia
183 Posts |
Posted - 12 Apr 2006 : 22:09:02
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Yes Dangus,
I have never claimed to have a tidy mind. Indeed, confusion is one of my most important creative instruments, and I am into creativity more than anything else, including explanation which I'll try to do now, explain how the content of that last post of mine is relevant to the topic, indeed even answers your last question ". . .how water got here and stayed here in such large quantities": In the last para. of my last post, I wrote:
". . . an effective Freeze Effect, globally on Earth, even on Mars and the Moon . . . consistent with my last post, and recent observations". This alluded to Slides 23-35 of my www.nodrift.com w.1a.pps slide show where, at the bottom of Slide 35, I have written:
"Note that Moon, Mars [global] symmetries indicate that Earth¡¯s symmetries may have been preserved by Freeze Effect even without its oceans."
Implicit in this Freeze Effect explanation of Earth, Moon and Mars global symmetries was proof, years before recent permafrost observations, that H2O is a major component of the crusts of Earth, Moon and Mars, consistent with my 6 April explanation.
So your explanation of 5 April, that "Earth does have a lot of water relative to other planets . . ." is true only in the sense that Earth's surface exists mostly, uniquely, as liquid ocean instead of permafrost.
Earth, Moon and Mars are of course critical cases. Everyone is agreed that there is plenty of H2O as ice further out where it is cold, and not much further in towards the Sun, where it is too hot.
How much of Earth's water was delivered as cometary impacts is a good question which Jim, I, and others did not get into because it is so complicated. My personal feeling has always been that cometary contributions were minor.
H2O is common here on Earth, Moon and Mars because these planets are big and cool enough to have hung onto much of what they originally got, and that was a lot, because H2O is common throughout the cooler parts of the Universe, because Hydrogen and Oxygen are common throughout the Universe. |
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Peter Nielsen
Australia
183 Posts |
Posted - 13 Apr 2006 : 19:38:10
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I regret having passed an opinion re cometary H2O contributions, because while this is something I have often reflected on, I never came to any conclusion, so really I am very open-minded about it.
What happened was that when I wrote that last post, the last time I'd reflected on the subject, I was thinking about mineral hydrates in the mantle. Earth's mantle has always had a huge capacity to entrap H2O as hydrates despite high temperatures, because of high pressures.
So it is wrong to assume, as many do, that all the H2O would have been boiled out of the Earth, then blown away by the Solar Wind and so on. By the way, I've just revised that w.1a.pps Slide 35 referred to in my last two posts to read:
"Symmetrical MOAC winners indicate real antipodal resonances of Mars, Moon and Earth, consistent with super huge impact-generated shock wave interference pattern fringe "inscription¡°, Freeze Effect geneses of these inner planets¡¯ surfaces. Note that Moon, Mars symmetries indicate that Earth¡¯s symmetries would probably have been preserved by Freeze Effect without its oceans." |
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Peter Nielsen
Australia
183 Posts |
Posted - 14 Apr 2006 : 18:42:38
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This thread discussion (my v.7 Link. Thanks MetaResearch!) has led to my improving the explanations, relevant to the Topic, of my w.1a.pps Slides 36, 35, which now read, respectively:
"That water would have been released into the crusts and surfaces of Mars, Moon, Earth from subcrustal mineral hydrates by those antipodal resonances, along with other light minerals. In the case of the Earth, these would have included much oil and salt. Heavy metals would also have been released from the CMB, because shock wave energy densities would have increased with depth, melting the central core, 4.16."
"[Mars, Moon and Earth] Symmetrical MOAC [global Maps Of Antipodal Conjugacies] winners indicate real antipodal resonances of Mars, Moon and Earth, consistent with super huge impact-generated shock wave interference pattern fringe "inscription¡°, Freeze Effect geneses of these inner planets¡¯ surfaces. Note that Moon, Mars symmetries indicate that Earth¡¯s symmetries may not have depended on its oceans, may have been preserved by Freeze Effect even without them."
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How did earth get all this water?
