鈥淧EOPLE keep asking if we鈥檝e found the water that dripped underground from Noah鈥檚 flood,鈥� says Jesse Lawrence. No wonder: he has found a reservoir holding as much water as the Arctic Ocean deep below Earth鈥檚 surface.
Lawrence, from the University of California, San Diego, and Michael Wysession of Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, analysed more than 600,000 seismic signals generated by earthquakes travelling through the Earth. They were surprised to find that the waves weakened below eastern Asia at depths between 600 and 1200 kilometres, corresponding to Earth鈥檚 lower mantle.
The researchers realised that there must be massive amounts of water in porous mantle rock muffling the seismic waves, mainly below Beijing, China. They think that the water was dragged down by the movement of tectonic plates below the Pacific Ocean, in a process that took 200 million years. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 far too long to be attributed to Noah鈥檚 flood,鈥� quips Lawrence.
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鈥淭here must be massive amounts of water muffling seismic waves below Beijing鈥�
