Investigating a strange electrical anomalousness , geologists have discovered an enormous water man-made lake beneath the now - dormant Uturunco volcano in the Bolivian Andes . It ’s a remarkable find that speaks to the vast amounts of piss stored in Earth ’s deep Interior Department , peradventure since our satellite was formed .
“ It ’s credibly somewhere between Lake Superior and Lake Huron , ” Jon Blundy , a geologist at the University of Bristol and conscientious objector - source on thenew discoverypublished in Earth and Planetary Science Letters , told New Scientist . “ It ’s a staggeringly declamatory amount . ”
As geologists probe Earth ’s deep interior using fresh technology , it ’s becoming readable our classic word-painting of volcanoes , as breach in the Earth ’s Earth’s crust that sit atop vast reservoirs of gooey rock , is a bit simplistic . In some subject , themagma source is not located beneath the volcano , but many Swedish mile aside . In other instances , there ’s more to the magma itself than meets the eye .
Mikael Laumonier of the University of Bayreuth and his colleagues fall upon Uturuncu ’s reeking secret while investigating unknown properties of the Altiplano - Puna magma consistence , located nearly 10 miles beneath the vent . This magma body slow up down seismic waves and features a amazingly mellow electrical conduction . According to research lab experiment that false temperatures and force per unit area inside the vent , its properties are best explicate by a urine contentedness of 8 to 10 percentage .
Extrapolating this tightness to the full size of the Altiplano - Puna magma body , the investigator generalise the bearing of a tremendous subterranean “ lake , ” of sorts . “ It ’s dissolved in partially melted rock at 950 to 1000 degrees Celsius , so it ’s not accessible , ” Blundy told New Scientist .
While we wo n’t be tap Uturuncu for irrigation anytime presently , the determination could help explain anomalous electric readings from other volcanic organisation around the creation , including the Cascade arc in the Pacific Northwest and the Taupo Volcanic Zone in New Zealand . What ’s more , a high body of water cognitive content in active volcanoes may shed light on the penning of Earth ’s continental crust , and on a 4.5 billion year erstwhile mystery : how our planet got wet in the first place .
There ’s a fierce scientific debate over whether the Earth flux from flyspeck , water - surface grains of junk , or whether our blue marble started its life as a dry rock , with the oceans arriving later via comets and asteroids . The answermay lie down in water buried in ardent reservoirsmiles beneath our foot .
[ Earth and Planetary Science LettersviaNew Scientist ]
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