How did earth get all this water?

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.

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.

Thanks everyone. This is very interesting.

Emanuel

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.

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

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.