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A new study led by a team of scientists at UCD shows that a reaction between silicon dioxide that is found in quartz crystals and fluid hydrogen at high temperatures and pressure, found in the earth's upper mantle, can create water.
Earth's water may have originally been formed by chemical reactions deep within the planet's mantle, according to research led by University College Dublin.
The new theory offers an alternative explanation as to how the life-giving liquid may have originated on Earth. Previously, scientists have suggested that comets that collided with the planet could have deposited large amounts of ice on the Earth which later melted, forming water.
The investigators carried out computer simulations which found that
reactions between high-pressure and high-temperature fluid hydrogen and silicon dioxide in quartz, found in Earth's upper mantle, can form liquid water under the right conditions.
The simulations were carried out by Dr Zdenek Futera, UCD School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering, under the direction of Profesor Niall English, UCD School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering, and the Materials, Energy and Water Simulations research group. The team at UCD also worked closely with co-author of the paper, Professor John Tse, University of Saskatchewan in Canada.
The exercise tested the reaction at different temperatures and pressures typically found in the
upper mantle 40 to 400km below the surface of the Earth.
The simulations revealed that the silica and fluid hydrogen could form water when exposed to temperatures of just over 1400°C and at pressure 20,000 times higher than Earth's atmospheric pressure.
Silica is found in abundance above and below the surface of the
earth in the form of the mineral quartz - the Earth's crust is 59 per cent silica.
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