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Speaker 1: Katie, I've got an alien hypothetical for you. Okay, I'm

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Speaker 1: i the alien in this hypothetical. No, you need the

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Speaker 1: aliens in this scenario. Cool. I've always wanted to get

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Speaker 1: drinks with aliens. So my question is, you're at the bar,

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Speaker 1: you're sipping space martinis, whatever. How do you describe to

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Speaker 1: aliens what Earth is like? Well, first of all, I

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Speaker 1: would be sipping a cosmic cosmo, and I would describe Earth. Well.

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Speaker 1: I'd want to be fair about Earth, but if I'm

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Speaker 1: too nice about it, they might want to take it

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Speaker 1: from us. So you know, I'd have to really walk

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Speaker 1: the line between playing it up too much, making it

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Speaker 1: sound too good, or making it sound too bad. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a delicate balance between honesty and like a species

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Speaker 1: of self preservation. I guess I could tell them that

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Speaker 1: it used to be amazing and gorgeous, but then we

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Speaker 1: ruined it, and we're not going to get an invite

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Speaker 1: to their planet. I mean, would you invite us depends

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Speaker 1: on your cosmic cocktail recipe. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a

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Speaker 1: party gold physicist and a professor at UC Irvine, and

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Speaker 1: I would definitely not invite me to your alien planet.

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Speaker 1: And I am Katie Golden. I'm stepping in for Jorgey.

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Speaker 1: I host the podcast Creature Feature and the secret to

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Speaker 1: the Cosmic Cosmo is just a little bit of sprite.

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Speaker 1: What if you get to the alien planet and you

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Speaker 1: want to make this famous cocktail the reason they've invited

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Speaker 1: you across the light years, and they don't have sprite.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess Dr PIB would do fine. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'd be worried that if I got invited to that

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Speaker 1: alien planet, I'd bring with me some crazy microbes that

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Speaker 1: would like wipe out this alien species, and I'd be

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Speaker 1: so desperate to learn from them and talk to them

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Speaker 1: about the secrets of the universe, and then I would

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Speaker 1: be the cause of their death. That's why it's always

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Speaker 1: important to cover your mouth when you cough when you're

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Speaker 1: on an alien planet or on a train. Right. I

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Speaker 1: guess I'll just have to wear my mask or my

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Speaker 1: has mat suit when I finally read Aliens. But that

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Speaker 1: makes it quite difficult to drink a cocktail. It does,

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Speaker 1: so I think if we are going to master interstellar flight,

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Speaker 1: we may want to also master a mask that you

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Speaker 1: can drink through. Well. Welcome to the podcast. Daniel and

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Speaker 1: Jorge explain the universe in which we try to mix

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Speaker 1: up a cosmic cocktail of craziness for you. The ingredients

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Speaker 1: are all of the insanity in our universe, the crazy

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Speaker 1: things that the universe does, from bending space and time

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Speaker 1: to bizarre states of matter, to the squishiness of life

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Speaker 1: on Earth and how it all works he losing radiance.

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Speaker 1: We mix them all up with a healthy dose of

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Speaker 1: silly jokes, and we serve it to you because we

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Speaker 1: think that everybody deserves to understand the universe, or at

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Speaker 1: least do share in our common ignorance and wonder at

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Speaker 1: its majesty and at its crazy insanity. Curiosity, and also

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Speaker 1: peach schnops are very important for the cocktail. Absolutely and horror.

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Speaker 1: He can't make it today. So I'm very grateful to

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Speaker 1: Katie for joining us today for an exploration of questions

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Speaker 1: about the universe. Thanks very much, Katie. Yeah, I'm so

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Speaker 1: happy we here, and I am excited to talk about

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Speaker 1: I guess we're talking about some form of cocktail, aren't we.

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Speaker 1: We are exactly today. We are exploring not the deep

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Speaker 1: depths of black holes or what's going on in far

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Speaker 1: away galaxies, but questions that are right here at home,

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Speaker 1: questions that are literally under our feet, and questions that

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Speaker 1: inform how we make our own cocktails. That's right. I

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Speaker 1: really like when we talk about Earth because I am

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Speaker 1: a little bit biased about Earth because I live on it,

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Speaker 1: and I do like it. You're in the pro Earth camp. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's very controversial. Take their Katie. I mean it kind

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Speaker 1: of is, no, but you're right. It's important that we

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Speaker 1: understand not just our origins here on Earth, but how

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Speaker 1: things here on earthwork. From a practical point of view,

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Speaker 1: we need to understand the systems that we are affecting,

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Speaker 1: that we are influencing. When we say, oh, the oceans

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Speaker 1: are basically infinite, it's okay to throw plastic in them.

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Speaker 1: It's important that we understand the water cycle and how

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Speaker 1: that actually works, and so questions about the nature of

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Speaker 1: our home are very important as well as just feeding

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Speaker 1: our curiosity for how everything came together to create the

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Speaker 1: conditions that allow for us to exist. It feels so

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Speaker 1: much like it was made for us. I love this

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Speaker 1: quote from I think it was Douglas Adams, who wrote

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Speaker 1: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, who talked about

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Speaker 1: how when you have a ditch in the road, the

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Speaker 1: puddle of water that forms, and it thinks, Wow, how

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Speaker 1: convenient that this ditch was made just for me, And

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Speaker 1: maybe that's how we feel about the Earth. It was

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Speaker 1: made just for us. In fact, we were made just

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Speaker 1: for the Earth. But speaking of water, that is one

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Speaker 1: of my favorite things about the planet Earth, how much

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Speaker 1: water there is. As a living organism. I certainly enjoy

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Speaker 1: that aspect to life on this planet. One of my

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Speaker 1: favorite things about studies of the Earth is just how

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Speaker 1: much those stories have changed over the years, how many

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Speaker 1: mind blowing ideas we have unearthed in our studies. You know,

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Speaker 1: the picture of how the Earth is formed shows that

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Speaker 1: it's not just like a planet that's been zipping around

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Speaker 1: the Sun for the last few billion years, but that

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Speaker 1: there is crazy chaos involved. You know that there might

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Speaker 1: have been a huge mar size impact or which helped

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Speaker 1: to form the Moon. The Earth might have been very

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Speaker 1: different early on, and really basic questions about what's going

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Speaker 1: on inside it, how it's magnetic field works, and where

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Speaker 1: all the stuff that made it came from. These questions

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Speaker 1: are still unanswered, which means that there might be exciting

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Speaker 1: discoveries still ahead. We might change dramatically our whole concept

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Speaker 1: of like what the Earth is, just by asking pretty

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Speaker 1: basic questions about what's in it and you put your

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Speaker 1: finger on a juicy one literally, because one of the

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Speaker 1: important features of Earth, of course, is it's water. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you looked at Earth from outer space, you would say, oh,

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Speaker 1: the Earth is a water planet. We mostly walk around

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Speaker 1: on the surface, so we think of like you know,

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Speaker 1: the continents as the sort of main part of the Earth,

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Speaker 1: but really if you look at it from space, it's

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Speaker 1: mostly water. Yeah, And that's so interesting. We feel so

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Speaker 1: our world is so restricted to the land because we

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Speaker 1: are terrestrial organisms, but so much of life and so

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Speaker 1: much of the world is in the water, which is

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Speaker 1: particularly hard for us to study, as of course terrestrial creatures.

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Speaker 1: We can't just dive in there with our bare, flimsy

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Speaker 1: human bodies and air breathing lungs, and so it's this vast,

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Speaker 1: vast area of mystery. But it's also full of life

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Speaker 1: and physics and chemistry. So it's not just this void

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Speaker 1: space right like where we have our land masses and

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Speaker 1: just this blue nothingness in between them. It's full of

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Speaker 1: stuff that is so interesting to explore. And discover and

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Speaker 1: so much is left unknown about it, like you were

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Speaker 1: saying earlier, and it's another lesson about how to avoid

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Speaker 1: being biased by your point of view. We do this

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Speaker 1: thing over and over as scientists, where we study like

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Speaker 1: our little ditch, as you say, and we imagine we

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Speaker 1: generalize from that that maybe everything is just like this,

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Speaker 1: and then we discover, oh, our ditch is actually weird

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Speaker 1: or unusual, you know, the way that we've learned recently

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Speaker 1: that our kind of matter is very strange in the universe.

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Speaker 1: It's a tiny fraction of the kinds of matter that

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Speaker 1: are out there. You can't generalize from the way our

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Speaker 1: particles work to the way the whole universe works. In

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Speaker 1: that same way, we can't generalize from like how a

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Speaker 1: life on the surface on the dry ground works to

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Speaker 1: how life in general works. Is as you say, most

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Speaker 1: of it's in the ocean, And so today we'll be

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Speaker 1: exploring that question what is going on with the water

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Speaker 1: on Earth? And more specifically, on today's podcast, we'll be

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Speaker 1: asking the question where is most of Earth's water? If

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Speaker 1: you look at it from space, of course you imagine, wow,

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Speaker 1: it's mostly in the oceans. But is that the whole story.

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Speaker 1: I am so interested to find out. It makes me

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Speaker 1: feel like Earth is one big Easter egg and inside

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Speaker 1: is maybe chocolate or maybe water. Yeah. Absolutely, And if

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Speaker 1: you talk to geologists, it turns out that water is

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Speaker 1: important not just for life and for cocktails, but also

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Speaker 1: for important geological processes. It allows for volcanoes, or for

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Speaker 1: mantle flow and plate tectonics. And there's a lot more

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Speaker 1: going on inside the Earth than you might have a imagined.

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Speaker 1: And that makes it sound like Earth is constantly moving

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Speaker 1: under our feet. The Earth basically is a cosmic cocktail,

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Speaker 1: and we are just finding out the recipe. So I

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Speaker 1: was wondering how much people knew about the mysteries of

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Speaker 1: Earth's water, where it came from, and where it is

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Speaker 1: right now. So I went out into the Internet to

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Speaker 1: ask our volunteers this question, where is most of the

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Speaker 1: water on Earth? If you'd like to participate for a

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Speaker 1: future episode, please don't be shy, right to me two

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Speaker 1: questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com and I'll shoot

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Speaker 1: you email instructions with how to play at home. But

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Speaker 1: if you're listening at home today, before you hear these answers,

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Speaker 1: ask yourself, where do you think most of the Earth's

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Speaker 1: water is Here's what people had to say. Shouldn't you

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Speaker 1: understood the question correctly? The most water on Earth, it's uh,

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Speaker 1: we have it in in the oceans. Where is it from?

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Speaker 1: That's fro a different salvage. I think most of the

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Speaker 1: water is in liquid form, specifically the Pacific Ocean. Have

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Speaker 1: a hard time believing there's more water, uh, in solid

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Speaker 1: form in Antarctica or the North Pole, or in any

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Speaker 1: form of water vapor in the air. My first case

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Speaker 1: is the poles, the pole cats and the poles. And

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Speaker 1: maybe it's a trick questions. I might say in the atmosphere,

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Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it's right around the area of the

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Speaker 1: Mariana Trench. And do you think where it's deepest. I

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Speaker 1: would probably have to say in the Earth's crust, because

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Speaker 1: I know water seeps down in there. But I remember

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Speaker 1: hearing at one point that it was a different consistency

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Speaker 1: or different chemical structure, but still water. I'm gonna take

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Speaker 1: a step at this and say it's not actually on Earth,

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Speaker 1: it's actually in the Earth's crust. This is a tricky one.

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Speaker 1: Of course, I would say the ocean, But then why

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Speaker 1: would we be asking this question. So I'm guessing that

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Speaker 1: it's trapped in like the atmosphere in particles, in particle form,

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Speaker 1: I would assume it's in Antarctica, like in the polar

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Speaker 1: ice caps. And that's why we're so worried about global warming,

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Speaker 1: because the sea levels would rise in the temperature would

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Speaker 1: rise as well. Um, So yeah, I'm gonna say it's

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Speaker 1: in those giant mountains of ice, basically like a continent

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Speaker 1: of frozen water. Most of the water in the in

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Speaker 1: the in the on Earth should be in the Pacific

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Speaker 1: Ocean because it's the biggest ocean, and also because you

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Speaker 1: have like the Myra and Mariana Trench, which is like

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Speaker 1: ten thousand, ten thousand meters deep. I believe most of

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Speaker 1: the water on Earth are underground, somewhere in between the

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Speaker 1: surface and the center of work. All the all the

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Speaker 1: oceans are once we see most and we we have

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Speaker 1: more access to they are just like a thing, a

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Speaker 1: layer of our planet. They are really really tiny compared

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Speaker 1: to the diameter of Earth. The obvious answer is the oceans,

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Speaker 1: but that's probably too obvious. I'm guessing it's wrong if

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Speaker 1: you're talking about freshwater. I did some work a while

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Speaker 1: ago on modeling the glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland, so

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Speaker 1: I'd say the ice sheets there have the largest amount

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Speaker 1: of freshwater, and even more if you include the Arctic

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Speaker 1: ice Cap and the rest of the glaciers around the world.

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Speaker 1: I think the obvious answer is in the oceans, but

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Speaker 1: I suspect that's not correct. I think most of the

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Speaker 1: water on on our planet is in the crust, so

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Speaker 1: it's in the plates of the crust, and maybe a

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Speaker 1: little bit deeper as well, So I think that's where

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Speaker 1: the vast majority waters um in the in area, not

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Speaker 1: in the atmosphere or the oceans. All right, Katie, what

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Speaker 1: do you think of these answers? I mean, that's really interesting,

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Speaker 1: much more creative than my brain would go like, because

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Speaker 1: I think, of course oceans, lots of water in the oceans.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I do like this idea that maybe there's

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Speaker 1: some secret water tucked away deep inside the Earth, because

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Speaker 1: when you think about it, you know, we can't there's

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Speaker 1: so much of the planet at this point in our

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Speaker 1: state of technology we cannot explore without being very much

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Speaker 1: melted or crushed. Yeah, that's absolutely true. There are mysteries

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Speaker 1: deep in the Earth. I really like that the listeners

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Speaker 1: point out the variety of different kinds of water just

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Speaker 1: here on the surface. Obviously you've got your oceans, but

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Speaker 1: then there's water in the atmosphere. There's the polar ice caps,

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Speaker 1: there's lakes and rivers. There's so many different kinds of

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Speaker 1: water just here on the surface with us. And like

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Speaker 1: how some folks were wondering, like how much water could

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Speaker 1: be in the atmosphere, how much water could be in

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Speaker 1: the polarized caps. Yeah, because water so versatile. It comes

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Speaker 1: in a solid, a liquid, and a gas, so there's

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Speaker 1: much more opportunity for it to exist than just in

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Speaker 1: you know, the big old puddle of the ocean. And

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Speaker 1: one of my favorite things about geology of water is

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Speaker 1: that geologists talk about water in a crazy unit. They

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Speaker 1: use a unit of oceans, Like how many oceans of

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Speaker 1: water are we talking about? So one ocean of water

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Speaker 1: is basically all the water on the surface of the Earth,

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Speaker 1: And if you had like five oceans, that's like five

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Speaker 1: times all the water on the surface. It's a crazy unit.

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Speaker 1: I love when people invent insane units because they're just

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Speaker 1: talking about vast quantities of stuff. You know, now, how

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Speaker 1: many Olympic swimming pools. Would an ocean be some very

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Speaker 1: big number, more cocktails than you could drink in an

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Speaker 1: evening with aliens, that's for sure. I love of water.

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Speaker 1: I like to drink it. Uh, it is good for

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Speaker 1: my body to be alive. But has it all it

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Speaker 1: seems so convenient for life. How did it even get here?

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Speaker 1: How did we even get water on the planet Earth.

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Speaker 1: It's a really fascinating question. It turns out to be

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Speaker 1: a really important one to understand where the water is,

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Speaker 1: is to figure out where it came from, how it

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Speaker 1: formed with the Earth, or whether it formed with the Earth.

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Speaker 1: So these are all really interesting, interconnected questions. And this

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Speaker 1: sort of a standard story you hear in science and

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Speaker 1: we've talked about on the podcast. It turns out to

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Speaker 1: be a little bit more complex. Recent studies have sort

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Speaker 1: of cracked open some questions about that. But the standard tale,

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Speaker 1: the one we begin with, it goes all the way

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Speaker 1: back to the origins of the Solar System, so you know,

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Speaker 1: the Sun and the planets didn't exist throughout the whole

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Speaker 1: history of the universe. The universe existed for like nine

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Speaker 1: billion years before our Solar system came together, before our

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Speaker 1: star even shined, which is sort of hard to imagine. Again,

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Speaker 1: we think about like our little ditch as the most

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Speaker 1: important place in the universe, But almost ten billion years

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Speaker 1: went on before our ditch was even form. But our

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Speaker 1: solar system came together from a huge cloud of gas

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Speaker 1: and dust, and lots of those bits were left over

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Speaker 1: from other stars that lived and then blew up and

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Speaker 1: spread their materials out into the universe. We're kind of

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Speaker 1: a recycled solar system. You know, at the end of

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Speaker 1: the night, you take all the half drunk cocktails from

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Speaker 1: the bar, you pour them all together, make a mix.

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Speaker 1: That's basically our solar system. That is called a brain

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Speaker 1: smash or not a cosmic cocktail. Well, you mix all

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Speaker 1: that stuff together, and you know, you have a lot

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Speaker 1: of hydrogen. Most of it is hydrogen because that's just

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Speaker 1: what the universe started with after the Big Bang. But

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Speaker 1: you have bits of oxygen and carbon and heavier stuff

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Speaker 1: in their uranium from neutron star collisions, etcetera. And then

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Speaker 1: something triggers a collapse. The cloud gets cold enough and

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Speaker 1: maybe there's a super and over shock wave that comes by,

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Speaker 1: and you start to get a gravitational elapse and things

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Speaker 1: start to condense. Most of the stuff, of course, goes

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Speaker 1: to the Sun. The hygrogen gets pulled in, and then

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Speaker 1: you get the formations of this planetary disk, which becomes

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Speaker 1: all of the planets. And again a lot of it

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Speaker 1: goes to Jupiter, but some of it pulls together and

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Speaker 1: forms like the inner rocky planets. But then it's fascinating

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Speaker 1: because you get different compositions of stuff further out and

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Speaker 1: closer into the Sun. Like closer into the Sun, of

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Speaker 1: course it's warmer. You've got lots of solar radiation, so

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Speaker 1: things like water, for example, can't exist in solid form

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Speaker 1: in the inner Solar System. You've got like molecules of water.

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Speaker 1: They get blown out to the outer Solar System because

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Speaker 1: their vapor, whereas in the outer Solar System water can

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Speaker 1: freeze so it can participate in like you know, gravitational accumulation.

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Speaker 1: That's why you get like ice planets. Further out in

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Speaker 1: the Solar System, you don't get ice planets like near

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Speaker 1: Mercury and Venus. And it's so nice that we happened

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Speaker 1: to be right in the middle there where we're not

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Speaker 1: an ice planet, but we're also not just avoid of

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Speaker 1: any water. Otherwise we couldn't be here yeah, that's true.

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Speaker 1: Although we think that the young Earth was probably born

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Speaker 1: dry because the conditions were not good for water to

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Speaker 1: be liquid on the surface. It would just to get

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Speaker 1: vaporized and then it would sort of float away and

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Speaker 1: get blown out into the rest of the Solar System.

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Speaker 1: And so they think that like, while there may have

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Speaker 1: been water as part of the formation of the Earth,

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Speaker 1: any of it that existed on the surface probably got

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Speaker 1: blown away, got blasted clean very early on in the

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Speaker 1: Solar System's history. So that is very different from the

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Speaker 1: ocean filled planet that I know of in terms of like,

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Speaker 1: you know, the early oceans just being these huge chaotic

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Speaker 1: masses of water and chemicals with some land around. But

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Speaker 1: how did we get from being just a dried out,

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Speaker 1: desiccated planet to being one that is so full of

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Speaker 1: these huge oceans. It's a question that people are still exploring.

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Speaker 1: But one of the ideas is that after the chaos

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Speaker 1: of the Earth's formation and the drying out actually of

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Speaker 1: the Earth's surface and then the Moon forming collision, right

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Speaker 1: where some huge object comes and smashes like vaporizes the

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Speaker 1: entire crust and forms the Earth and the Moon, you know,

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Speaker 1: oceans could never have survived any of that. But they

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Speaker 1: think that after all of that initial chaos, water came

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Speaker 1: back to the Earth. You know, the initial water that

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Speaker 1: would have formed primordial oceans is gone, but that water

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Speaker 1: was redelivered to the surface by icy messengers. And so

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Speaker 1: sometimes people say it might be comets, because comets are

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Speaker 1: basically snowballs, and you land enough comets on the surface

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Speaker 1: of the Earth to basically fill an ocean. Some people

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Speaker 1: think it might be more like asteroids, that asteroids have

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Speaker 1: a lot of water in them as well, essentially the

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Speaker 1: form of ice, and that these carbonaceous chondrites they're called

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Speaker 1: might have the right mix of the special kind of

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Speaker 1: water to basically replenish Earth with one ocean, like deliver

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Speaker 1: an ocean of water to Earth. That's amazing. I love

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Speaker 1: the idea that little baby Earth just got pummeled with

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Speaker 1: enough snowballs that oceans started a form. It's crazy to

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Speaker 1: imagine that you could deliver an entire ocean. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the quantities of water in the ocean are just incredible.

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Speaker 1: I live here in southern California. We go out to

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Speaker 1: the beach all the time and it's just, oh my gosh,

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Speaker 1: it's so much water. You know, and we can hardly

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Speaker 1: see a tiny little slice of it. And you can

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Speaker 1: sail for a thousand miles and remember flying once for

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Speaker 1: an academic conference in Tahiti, which is quite a boondoggle,

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Speaker 1: but you just spend like hours and hours flying over

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Speaker 1: water which is like miles deep. It's really hard to

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Speaker 1: imagine filling that up with snowballs. Like if your job

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Speaker 1: was to throw snowballs at the Earth until you had

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Speaker 1: an ocean's worth, it feels like you'd be there forever.

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Speaker 1: And then when you look at some of these diagrams

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Speaker 1: of like the deepest points of the ocean and how

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Speaker 1: are you're just kind of stacking up statues of liberty.

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Speaker 1: There's an immensity to it that's almost intimidating, exactly. And

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Speaker 1: I think the way to reconcile that is to realize

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Speaker 1: that that immensity is actually absolutely tiny on the scales

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Speaker 1: that we're talking about. I mean, the ocean, you right,

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Speaker 1: it's vast, it's deep, it's incredible. On the other hand,

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Speaker 1: it's also a very very thin layer on top of

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Speaker 1: the Earth. So like the ocean in terms of like

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Speaker 1: fraction of the Earth's volume is paltry. You know, like

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Speaker 1: if you were holding the Earth in your hand, it

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Speaker 1: would like feel a little bit wet. The oceans just

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Speaker 1: sit as a very thin layer on top of this

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Speaker 1: massive Earth. And that's the clue, because there's so much

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Speaker 1: material out there in the Solar System that if you

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Speaker 1: smash a fairly large meteor or comet onto the Earth

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Speaker 1: and its friends could easily contribute enough water to replenish

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Speaker 1: this fairly thin ocean we have on our surface. So

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Speaker 1: it's kind of a soggy marble rather than a water balloon.

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Speaker 1: So is Earth is holding all this water because the

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Speaker 1: water is pulled in by Earth's gravity? And is it

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Speaker 1: protected at all from the universe? Like, why doesn't it

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Speaker 1: just evaporate? It does actually still evaporate. Water is fairly light,

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Speaker 1: and if it's in the upper atmosphere, it can get

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Speaker 1: blown away by the Solar wind. And the Earth is

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Speaker 1: constantly losing atmosphere to space all the time, and water

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Speaker 1: is a big part of that. And so we are

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Speaker 1: still losing some water and then we're getting some more

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Speaker 1: water as things hit the upper atmosphere. It's not like

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Speaker 1: the Earth is isolated from the rest of the Solar System.

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Speaker 1: It's part of this whole complex network. Things are moving

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Speaker 1: much slower than they did very early on. But you

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Speaker 1: know where we are today is like a snapshot of

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Speaker 1: a very slow moving process, sort of like when you

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Speaker 1: think about the continents. You know, the continents, you don't

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Speaker 1: think about the moving, but you know in your heart

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Speaker 1: that in a million years and in a hundred million years,

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Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth will look very different. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you live in California, you probably do think about

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Speaker 1: the continent's moving, because it does happen. Yeah, exactly there

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Speaker 1: this shaken and sometimes stirred, but you know, I love

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Speaker 1: getting this glimpse as to these geological time scales that

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Speaker 1: the Earth really is changing, the solar system really is changing,

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Speaker 1: and that water itself is flowing around the Solar system

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Speaker 1: from here to there. It's super fascinating and the way

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Speaker 1: that they figured this stuff out is also really an

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Speaker 1: incredible piece of detective work. Ah, the suspense is killing me. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'll just drink a big glass of water while I wait.

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Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break, and then we'll talk about

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Speaker 1: how we figure out where water on Earth has come from. Okay,

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Speaker 1: we're back and we're talking about Earth as a cocktail.

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Speaker 1: It's got lots of nickel, and it's got a delicious

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Speaker 1: drop of cosmic sprite. You left us on a cliffhanger

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Speaker 1: about how we discovered where this water came from. And

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Speaker 1: I have to know, I've been sweating buckets and I've

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Speaker 1: been trying to replenish my water by drinking glasses of water.

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Speaker 1: Just I guess kind of like, maybe is this, what

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Speaker 1: is this? How we discovered it? People we're thinking about

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Speaker 1: how maybe Earth got its water, and then they started

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Speaker 1: sweating because they were thinking so much, and then drinking

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Speaker 1: and wedding, and then came to them all of a sudden.

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Speaker 1: I don't know that much about the personal history of

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Speaker 1: those scientists, but the scientific history of it is quite interesting.

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Speaker 1: It turns out that water is not the same everywhere.

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Speaker 1: Mostly water has an oxygen and then two hydrogen's right

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Speaker 1: H two O, and hydrogen is the most common element

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Speaker 1: in the universe. It's just a proton with an electron

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00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:23,680
Speaker 1: around it, right, Well, that's the normal hydrogen, but there's

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Speaker 1: another form of it. You can also add a neutron.

430
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:28,920
Speaker 1: So if your nucleus has a proton and a neutron

431
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 1: in it, we call that deuterium. So it's exactly the

432
00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 1: same electric charge, and the properties of it are very

433
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:37,480
Speaker 1: very similar. But it's a little bit heavier than normal hydrogen.

434
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:41,520
Speaker 1: And so if you then form water with deuterium instead

435
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:44,879
Speaker 1: of hydrogen, you get something we call heavy water. And

436
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 1: so it's got a normal hydrogen, one heavier hydrogen deuterium

437
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 1: and then oxygen, and it has very similar properties to

438
00:24:51,880 --> 00:24:54,600
Speaker 1: normal water. Okay, so if you're looking at a glass

439
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:59,400
Speaker 1: of deuterium water versus normal water, can you really visually

440
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:02,600
Speaker 1: or physical really tell a difference on a human level.

441
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:06,119
Speaker 1: That's a great question. Well, heavy water is like ten

442
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:09,960
Speaker 1: percent denser than normal water, so you might notice if

443
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:11,800
Speaker 1: you pick it up, you're like, this feels a little

444
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:14,199
Speaker 1: bit heavy. Suppose if you're like very sensitive to the

445
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 1: contents of your cocktails, But otherwise it seems sort of normal.

446
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:20,639
Speaker 1: We use heavy water on Earth for various industrial things.

447
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:24,680
Speaker 1: Is it drinkable? Heavy water can't participate in biological functions

448
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 1: in the same way, But if you drank it, it

449
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 1: wouldn't be that big a deal because you have to

450
00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 1: replace like a very large fraction of your body's light

451
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 1: water with heavy water before became toxic. So, like you know,

452
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:38,200
Speaker 1: accidental poisoning with heavy water is not something to worry about.

453
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:40,159
Speaker 1: If you, like are in a lab and there's a

454
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:42,520
Speaker 1: glass of heavy water and you accidentally drink it, you're

455
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 1: not going to die. Okay, that's good, So drink heavy

456
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:50,200
Speaker 1: water responsibly. I wouldn't recommend drinking anything. I'm just saying

457
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:55,560
Speaker 1: if you just did, don't panic. So I'm assuming like

458
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:57,359
Speaker 1: you're not going to go out to a lake or

459
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 1: a stream and just find, you know, spot of heavy water.

460
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,199
Speaker 1: Where would you find heavy water on earth? Or do

461
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:07,480
Speaker 1: you have to create it? Heavy water is everywhere. All

462
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 1: the water on Earth has some heavy water in it.

463
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 1: So it's less than like one part per mill of

464
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 1: deuterium to hydrogen. So every glass of water you drink,

465
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:20,160
Speaker 1: as you know, it's less than like one thousands heavy water,

466
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:22,960
Speaker 1: but it's there. It's everywhere. I just spit out my water.

467
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 1: You couldn't hear it, but I did do it. Well,

468
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:29,679
Speaker 1: you shouldn't reject it because you're also one part in

469
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 1: the thousand's heavy water, like you have deuterium in you. Yeah,

470
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:35,600
Speaker 1: But one of the really interesting things is that this

471
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:38,840
Speaker 1: fraction how much heavy water there is how much deuterium

472
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:42,199
Speaker 1: there is changes depending on where you are in the

473
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: Solar system. So like you can use this as sort

474
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 1: of a fingerprint. If you get a glass of water,

475
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: you can get a clue as to where it came

476
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 1: from in the Solar system based on what fraction of

477
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:57,119
Speaker 1: it is heavy water. Wow, so can we tell where

478
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 1: the Earth was hit by these visitors from the Solar

479
00:27:00,119 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 1: system based on concentration of the heavy water. Well, most

480
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 1: of the water on Earth has about all the same

481
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: heavy water ratio, Like all the oceans have the same

482
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:11,399
Speaker 1: heavy water ratio. It's all mixed together. But what we

483
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:13,919
Speaker 1: can do is say, like, where else in the Solar

484
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: system has this same heavy water ratio? And then we

485
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:19,919
Speaker 1: can say that's probably where the water came from. And

486
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 1: it turns out that Earth's oceans have a higher fraction

487
00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 1: of heavy water than you would expect to have been

488
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 1: formed in this region of the Solar system. It's more

489
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:30,680
Speaker 1: like the heavy water ratio as you find further out

490
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 1: in the Solar system, like in the asteroid belt or

491
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:35,640
Speaker 1: in the ort Cloud where they think there was more

492
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:39,680
Speaker 1: deuterium early on. So we got our water imported from

493
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:41,879
Speaker 1: the or cloud. Yes, And so that was one of

494
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 1: the clues that led to this idea that the water

495
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:47,760
Speaker 1: might have come from comets and from asteroids because those

496
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 1: that they thought had this kind of heavy water. For

497
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 1: a long time, people thought, oh, it's probably commets, because

498
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:56,879
Speaker 1: comets are snowballs and asteroids are are rockier. But remember

499
00:27:56,880 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: on our recent podcast episode we talked about comets and

500
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 1: how big they can get and how crazy they are,

501
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 1: and you asked what we had learned by recently landing

502
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 1: something on the surface of a comet. And that's actually

503
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:11,879
Speaker 1: relevant to today's podcast because when they did that, when

504
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 1: they sent the Rosetta spacecraft up and they sent a

505
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:16,960
Speaker 1: lander down onto the surface of the comet, one of

506
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:20,359
Speaker 1: the things it did was measure the deteriorum fraction of

507
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 1: the water in that commet, to ask like, is it

508
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 1: the same as the heavy water fraction here on Earth

509
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 1: or is it totally different? So what did we find.

510
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 1: Are we getting our water from comets or from asteroids? Well,

511
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:33,160
Speaker 1: what they found is that one commet had a lot

512
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 1: of heavy water on it, more than we have here

513
00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:39,000
Speaker 1: on Earth, like a higher fraction. So then people, oh,

514
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 1: maybe comets didn't contribute that much to Earth's water. Maybe

515
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 1: it was more asteroids because asteroids that they've sampled have

516
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 1: a heavy water fraction that's more similar to Earth. But

517
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:50,640
Speaker 1: the picture is sort of confusing because then they sampled

518
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:53,000
Speaker 1: from another comet and they found a fraction that is

519
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 1: more similar to Earth. So the story is like, wow,

520
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 1: those comments are a mixed bunches. You can't just say, like,

521
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 1: all the comets in the cloud have one heavy water fraction,

522
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:03,960
Speaker 1: some of them have a lot, some of them don't

523
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 1: have very much at all. It's really an evolving story

524
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 1: right now. It's not something we understand very well. You

525
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 1: can't judge a comment by a single surface lander, as

526
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: the old A Dodge goes, Yeah, We'll remember, the Orc

527
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 1: Cloud has trillions of objects in it, so you can't

528
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 1: just like pick one and say this one is like

529
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: all the rest of them. Right now, we've like sampled

530
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:24,360
Speaker 1: two of these things and we get two different pictures.

531
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 1: That suggests that there's a lot of crazy stuff going

532
00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 1: on there in the Orc Cloud. So we got our

533
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 1: water imported from the Orc Cloud, which it makes me

534
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:35,760
Speaker 1: feel like a fancy planet, like, yes, this is water

535
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 1: imported from the Orc Cloud. If your career as a

536
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 1: scientist doesn't work out, I think you should start marketing

537
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 1: water as Orc water I imported from the Orc Cloud

538
00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 1: and make a killing that's even fancier than Fiji water.

539
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: It's like, Wow, I've protet is from the Orc Cloud.

540
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:55,840
Speaker 1: That's awesome. And to be totally clear, I think the

541
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: sort of leading scientific hypothesis right now is that comments

542
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 1: did contruy me to the water on Earth, but not

543
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:05,480
Speaker 1: all of it, maybe ten to twenty percent, and people

544
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 1: think the rest of it probably came from asteroids. There's

545
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 1: this one really big asteroid Vesta, which is the largest

546
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 1: in the Belt, and they found chunks of it on

547
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 1: Earth like it's been involved in collisions and bits broke

548
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:18,960
Speaker 1: off and then fell to Earth, and they've cracked those

549
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 1: open and found water inside them, like samples of water

550
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 1: from other places in the Solar System that have agreed

551
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 1: with the heavy water fraction here on Earth. So I

552
00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 1: think the leading theory right now is that comments played

553
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: a role, but that asteroids probably brought the bulk of

554
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 1: the water to Earth. But you know, it's an open

555
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: question and it's evolving, and we may have a different

556
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 1: picture in ten years. It is an actual water cocktail,

557
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:45,840
Speaker 1: which sounds very boring but actually seems very fascinating. We

558
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 1: got this water now, and it seems like it's all

559
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: on the surface, like we're, you know, a wet marble,

560
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 1: not a water balloon. But is that really true, Like

561
00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 1: is there some hidden pockets of water somewhere that we

562
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 1: don't know about. It's a great question, and it turns

563
00:31:02,440 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 1: out that there might be water deep in the Earth.

564
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 1: But first I thought it'd be fun to talk about

565
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 1: where the water is on the surface, because a lot

566
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 1: of our listeners were guessing it's like, maybe it's in

567
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, maybe it's in the polar ice caps. And

568
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 1: some of these numbers, when I looked them up, they

569
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 1: surprised me a little bit. I mean, of course, the

570
00:31:18,360 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 1: surface of the Earth is water, and on the surface,

571
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:23,680
Speaker 1: of course, most of that is the oceans. So if

572
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: you look at like the breakdown of where water is

573
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: on Earth, seven percent of all the water on the

574
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 1: surface of the Earth, so we're talking about like one

575
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: unit of water one ocean of water on the surface

576
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 1: of that is in the literal oceans, with almost half

577
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 1: of all the surface water on Earth being in the Pacific,

578
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 1: Like the Pacific is like half the budget all the

579
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:48,800
Speaker 1: surface water on Earth. It's incredible. I'd love to be

580
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:51,280
Speaker 1: at that board meeting of early Earth, like where should

581
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 1: we allocate all this water? Exactly? It's like it's the

582
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:59,000
Speaker 1: biggest cocktail on the planet. And that's right. So already

583
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:02,160
Speaker 1: now you're talking about just three of the Earth. Water

584
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 1: gets broken up into things like snow and glaciers. You know,

585
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:09,840
Speaker 1: like a percent and a half is snow and glaciers,

586
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 1: and most of that is in Antarctica. Like Antarctica by

587
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 1: itself is more than a percent of all the water

588
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 1: on Earth. That's kind of incredible. Yeah, yeah, I mean

589
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: it may not seem like a lot, but one point

590
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 1: five percent of all of the water on the surface,

591
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: that's a huge amount of water. And that reminds me

592
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:34,959
Speaker 1: of one of the listeners answers was thinking, maybe a

593
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 1: lot of the water are in these ice caps because

594
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:40,600
Speaker 1: we're very concerned about them with global warming, But it

595
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 1: really doesn't take that like proportionally, it doesn't take that

596
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 1: much water to cause sea levels to rise. And so

597
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 1: even if this is just one point five percent of

598
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: the total water, that's huge, huge amounts of water. And

599
00:32:56,720 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 1: the other missing one and a half percent and oceans

600
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: percent and a half basically in Antarctica and other snow

601
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: and glaciers. The missing percent and a half is groundwater.

602
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 1: So that's water that's underground that we can tap and

603
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,360
Speaker 1: we can drink, and that's most of the water on Earth.

604
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: But you notice we haven't talked about like the atmosphere

605
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:20,320
Speaker 1: and lakes and rivers, and that's because those are almost negligible.

606
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 1: Like all the water and all the lakes on the

607
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 1: surface of the Earth is point zero one percent of

608
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 1: the surface water on the Earth. Almost nothing. And I

609
00:33:30,280 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 1: mean I've seen lakes. It doesn't look like nothing to

610
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 1: me from a human perspective. No, And I've lived in

611
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 1: Chicago near Lake Michigan, which is amazing. Right in Lake Superior,

612
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 1: they're vaft. If you're in the middle of them, it

613
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 1: feels like you're on an ocean. I mean, there's waves

614
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:46,880
Speaker 1: and everything in storms, and you can capsize and you

615
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:50,240
Speaker 1: can die. And basically a puddle. That's zero point zero

616
00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: one percent of the water on Earth. So you should

617
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 1: definitely take it seriously. And then as you keep going,

618
00:33:55,360 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 1: like point zero zero one percent of the water on

619
00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:00,479
Speaker 1: Earth is in the atmosphere and the form of vapor

620
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 1: and clouds. It's just like the tiniest tiniest fraction. Do

621
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 1: you feel vulnerable somehow? Yeah, it does. And then zero

622
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:12,799
Speaker 1: point zero zero zero zero one is in rivers, right,

623
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 1: Rivers are basically irrelevant, though of course they play a

624
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:19,120
Speaker 1: vital role in you know, life on Earth and in

625
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,120
Speaker 1: salmon and all sorts of ecosystems. Yeah, you better not

626
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:26,280
Speaker 1: go around talking about how rivers are negligible to beavers,

627
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 1: because they will they have sharp teeth, they're dangerous. And

628
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:32,120
Speaker 1: then something I was curious about is like what about

629
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:35,520
Speaker 1: the water in life? You know, there's all sorts of

630
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 1: life in water, right, there's every sample of water you take,

631
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:41,360
Speaker 1: every cup of water has like zillions of microbes in it.

632
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:45,280
Speaker 1: But what fraction of water on Earth is in living systems?

633
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 1: Right now? You know, all the elephants and all the

634
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 1: whales and all the microbes add them all up together,

635
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:54,800
Speaker 1: and that's zero point zero zero zero zero zero eight

636
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:57,520
Speaker 1: per cent of the water on Earth. So you know,

637
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:00,120
Speaker 1: like that's basically negligible from the point of view of

638
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 1: like how much water there is, But of course it's

639
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:05,319
Speaker 1: important to us, right, so you can't just weigh these

640
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: things by their fractions. Obviously. That is so incredible, I mean,

641
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 1: it really puts in perspective almost to me more importantly,

642
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:16,400
Speaker 1: not like how small we are, but how massively, massively

643
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:20,879
Speaker 1: huge the oceans are. It's just mind boggling. I told

644
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:22,719
Speaker 1: this number to my wife, who's a biologist, and she

645
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 1: asked me, well, what fraction of water on Earth has

646
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: ever been in life? Like which molecules have participated in

647
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:33,799
Speaker 1: you know, some microbe or some beaver somewhere. That has

648
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 1: a great question. I don't know the answer, I imagine

649
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 1: it's probably a large fraction, right, Probably every water molecule

650
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:42,120
Speaker 1: has gotten to be alive at some point. Yeah, that

651
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:45,120
Speaker 1: I mean, I often think about whether the water I'm

652
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:51,160
Speaker 1: drinking used to be dinosaur pp often really that's like

653
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:53,719
Speaker 1: a deal. Yeah, I mean, you know, if I'm I

654
00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 1: put the water through my bread of filter and I'm

655
00:35:56,160 --> 00:35:59,200
Speaker 1: drinking it and thinking like, you know, I can purify

656
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 1: this water. But chances are this was in some kind

657
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 1: of dinosaur or maybe even in some kind of early human.

658
00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:09,040
Speaker 1: You know, why don't you think about maybe it used

659
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:13,359
Speaker 1: to be in some early human cocktail caveman cocktail when

660
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:15,439
Speaker 1: he was like, you know, fermenting something in the back

661
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 1: of the cave for a special celebration. With cave women partner.

662
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 1: You know, maybe they were making early cave juice. I

663
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 1: wonder if there's been any studies as how far back

664
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 1: people have been making alcohol. I mean, I know that

665
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 1: animals will imbibe alcohol when they come across fruit that

666
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:37,319
Speaker 1: is fermenting, so probably even our primate ancestors would imbibe alcohol.

667
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:40,640
Speaker 1: I would imagine we probably only started to make alcohol

668
00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:44,360
Speaker 1: once we started agriculture, because that's when you could actually

669
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:49,279
Speaker 1: collect things like wheat and have the time to ferment it.

670
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:52,480
Speaker 1: But there there is a theory that fermentation was an

671
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 1: important stage in our evolution because it can break down

672
00:36:57,160 --> 00:37:04,359
Speaker 1: sugars into a very nutritious and fun uh form Alright, Well,

673
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 1: probably most of the water on Earth has played a

674
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:10,800
Speaker 1: rule in somebody's cocktail or in somebody's biological function, and

675
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 1: at some point in the same way that like we're

676
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:16,319
Speaker 1: all breathing in part of Julius Caesar's last breath. It's

677
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 1: all a big part of the cycle, and it's all

678
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 1: mixes together. And it turns out that the water on

679
00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth, it's only a part of

680
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:24,880
Speaker 1: the water cycle of the Earth, and some of it

681
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 1: might not be on the Earth, but in the Earth.

682
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:29,640
Speaker 1: So let's take another break, and when we come back,

683
00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 1: we'll dive deeper into the Earth and understand whether or

684
00:37:32,560 --> 00:37:35,359
Speaker 1: not there is more water than just what sits on

685
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:50,440
Speaker 1: the surface. All Right, we're back and we're talking about

686
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:53,279
Speaker 1: where is the water on the Earth. And we've talked

687
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:55,680
Speaker 1: about how most of the water that's on the surface

688
00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 1: is in the Pacific Ocean, and most of that probably

689
00:37:58,080 --> 00:38:01,799
Speaker 1: came from distant parts of our learned neighborhood, the asteroids

690
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:04,280
Speaker 1: and the comets that delivered it after the young Earth

691
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:07,480
Speaker 1: had been dried out, and so that water in particular

692
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:10,800
Speaker 1: and sort of a larger heavy water fraction than you

693
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:13,879
Speaker 1: would expect from what would have formed in our neighborhood.

694
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:16,040
Speaker 1: But of course we can look deeper than just on

695
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 1: the surface. We can drill down and ask like could

696
00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:22,319
Speaker 1: there be water deeper down? Drilling for water it's a

697
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 1: it's just you know, that's that's what you gotta do

698
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:30,400
Speaker 1: in Texas these days. And geologists have long known that

699
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:33,359
Speaker 1: there's water in the Earth's crust. Right, you drill down,

700
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:36,000
Speaker 1: you drink ground water, and we know that this water

701
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 1: sort of very close to the surface, and that plays

702
00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:41,840
Speaker 1: an important role in like vulcanism and play tectonics, you know,

703
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:44,480
Speaker 1: the way that the geology of how these things flow

704
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 1: and what pressures and temperatures depends on how much water

705
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:50,560
Speaker 1: there is mixed in with them. Yeah, I mean you

706
00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 1: you also see with these deep sea geothermal events that

707
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 1: are spewing, you know, these this hot, chemical filled water

708
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:02,480
Speaker 1: out at the events. So even though it seems that

709
00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 1: we've got all the water we need on the surface,

710
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:09,280
Speaker 1: there is this constant kind of chaotic activity coming from

711
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:11,480
Speaker 1: below the surface, right Yeah, And so for a long

712
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:13,400
Speaker 1: time people thought, well, maybe that was the whole story.

713
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 1: You know, there's water on the surface and some of

714
00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:18,920
Speaker 1: it gets like forced down deeper into the crust because

715
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 1: of the crazy geology. But then people were wondering, like

716
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:25,799
Speaker 1: what about even deeper? And so to remind yourself, like

717
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:28,560
Speaker 1: what the sort of structure of the Earth is. We

718
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:31,400
Speaker 1: have this crust which sits on top of the mantle.

719
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 1: The mantle is like rock that's not exactly liquid. It's

720
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:37,560
Speaker 1: under very very high pressure, and so it can sort

721
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:40,720
Speaker 1: of flow a little bit, and the crust is basically

722
00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 1: floating on top of this mantle, so the upper mantle,

723
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: and then we have a mantle transition zone to the

724
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:50,360
Speaker 1: lower mantle. And the deeper you go, the higher the

725
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:53,880
Speaker 1: temperatures and the higher the pressures. Right, these things, every

726
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 1: layer has more and more stuff on top of it.

727
00:39:56,680 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a little bit hard for people to

728
00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 1: imagine sometimes, like why is there's so much pressure in

729
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:03,759
Speaker 1: the center of the Earth or in the middle of

730
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:06,520
Speaker 1: the Earth. And you know, imagine like diving down in

731
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:09,200
Speaker 1: a swimming pool. You go really really far down in

732
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 1: the deep end, your ears start to feel the pressure.

733
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:14,319
Speaker 1: That's because all all the layers of water that are

734
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 1: now on top of you, gravity is pulling them down

735
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:19,319
Speaker 1: and squeezing on top of you. That's why I could

736
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:21,960
Speaker 1: go like really deep in the ocean. Your submarine could

737
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 1: like implode, you could get crushed. So as you go

738
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 1: deeper deeper into the Earth, there's greater and greater pressure, right,

739
00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: So and that pressure, that is that what is creating

740
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 1: that heat. Yeah, that's what's creating that heat. Remember that temperature.

741
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:37,520
Speaker 1: A simple model for it is sort of like how

742
00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:40,680
Speaker 1: fast the particles are moving. So you're like a box

743
00:40:40,719 --> 00:40:43,319
Speaker 1: of gas. You measure it's temperature that tells you like

744
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:45,960
Speaker 1: how fast the particles are zipping around and if you

745
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:48,919
Speaker 1: then shrink that box, you're like pushing in on all

746
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 1: of the walls. Then basically you're adding speed to those particles.

747
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 1: Why you're adding speed is by pushing in on those sides.

748
00:40:56,080 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 1: So if the particle is going to like bounce off

749
00:40:58,040 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 1: the walls of that box, now the box instead of

750
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:02,920
Speaker 1: just being like a flat wall, it's like a train

751
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:06,319
Speaker 1: moving in towards the center. Bounce a tennis ball off

752
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:08,240
Speaker 1: of the train, it's going to come back at you faster.

753
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:10,759
Speaker 1: So you take a box of particles and you squeeze

754
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:13,720
Speaker 1: it with pressure, then you're speeding up all those particles,

755
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:16,239
Speaker 1: and that leads to the increased temperature. The same thing

756
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:19,440
Speaker 1: is happening inside the Earth. All these layers of stuff

757
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 1: above you are squeezing down on you. That effectively heats

758
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:24,759
Speaker 1: up everything. So that's why the center of the Earth

759
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:27,880
Speaker 1: is hot. That plus a bunch of like radioactive decay

760
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:30,880
Speaker 1: that's still happening inside the Earth that provides more temperature

761
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:34,760
Speaker 1: to heat things up just offhandedly. Oh and also radioactive decay.

762
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:37,279
Speaker 1: But you know, I mean that reminds me of like

763
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:39,440
Speaker 1: if you've ever played ping pong ball and you have

764
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:42,239
Speaker 1: a paddle and you have the ping pong ball, as

765
00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:44,400
Speaker 1: if you you're bouncing the ball on the table. As

766
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 1: you bring the paddle down against the ball, the bouncing

767
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:52,000
Speaker 1: starts to increase in speed, in frequency. Exactly, it's exactly

768
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 1: the same thing. The whole earth is basically a big

769
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:57,680
Speaker 1: ping pong paddle on all of these ping pong balls,

770
00:41:57,960 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 1: and near the center it's very very high. You know,

771
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:04,400
Speaker 1: we're talking about like five thousand, six thousand degrees kelvin

772
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:07,719
Speaker 1: in the very core um and you know the transition

773
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:10,920
Speaker 1: region is like two thousand degrees kelvin, And so as

774
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:13,280
Speaker 1: you get closer towards the center, it gets hotter and hotter.

775
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:15,359
Speaker 1: So you have the mantle, and then you have a core,

776
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 1: and you've got a bunch of layers. You've got upper mantle, mantle,

777
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:21,280
Speaker 1: transition zone, lower mantle, outer core, and then inner core.

778
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 1: So you're like five major regions, and people have been

779
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:26,920
Speaker 1: setting like what kind of things form in those regions,

780
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 1: Like when you have this very high pressure in these

781
00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:31,960
Speaker 1: very high temperature and the sort of ingredients that we

782
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:34,600
Speaker 1: think make up the core, you know, the silicas and

783
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:37,800
Speaker 1: the nickel and the iron, what kind of things happen?

784
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:39,800
Speaker 1: And so in the upper mantle sort of like the

785
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:43,040
Speaker 1: layer just below the crust, it tends to form this

786
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:47,440
Speaker 1: mineral they call olivine, which is basically, under these temperatures

787
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 1: and pressures, you take those ingredients to squeeze them together,

788
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 1: you get this certain chemical structure that likes to form

789
00:42:52,800 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 1: called olivine, which sounds to me like sort of like

790
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:58,440
Speaker 1: a tasty Italian snack, but they tell me it's not

791
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:02,080
Speaker 1: very good. I was gonna say that would be a

792
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 1: very popular concept. And here in Italy if the center

793
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: of the world was filled with olive oil, which is delicious,

794
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:13,239
Speaker 1: this does not sound so delicious. So so olivine is

795
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 1: like this under high pressure material exactly. And the interesting

796
00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 1: thing about the structure of olivine is it really cannot

797
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 1: hold water, Like the hydrogens and the oxygen's don't form

798
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,360
Speaker 1: as part of olivine like you form alivin. It like

799
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:29,720
Speaker 1: expels any water. So they think that probably the upper

800
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:33,000
Speaker 1: mantle is pretty dry. There might be some water in there,

801
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:35,360
Speaker 1: but it's like, you know, a hundred or two hundred

802
00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:38,040
Speaker 1: parts per million. So you know, as they're asking these

803
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:39,959
Speaker 1: questions like where is the water on Earth, the first

804
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:42,719
Speaker 1: question to ask is like, could there be water. Do

805
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:45,480
Speaker 1: the temperatures and pressures and the things down there can

806
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 1: they hold water? And so for the upper mantle the

807
00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 1: answer probably no. But fascinatingly, if you go deeper into

808
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:56,840
Speaker 1: the mantle transition region, then this olivine turns into something else.

809
00:43:57,280 --> 00:44:00,480
Speaker 1: This becomes under the higher temperatures and the higher pressures,

810
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:04,279
Speaker 1: becomes something called wadsleyite. And I have no idea who's

811
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:07,200
Speaker 1: responsible for these names. They're totally bonkers. Could you just

812
00:44:07,239 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: repeat that again. It's Wadsleyite, Wadsleyite, haads leite, which does

813
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:14,719
Speaker 1: not sound like something I would order on the menu

814
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:17,440
Speaker 1: of an Italian restaurant. You know, I'd be like, no,

815
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 1: thank you. It sounds like it was discovered by someone

816
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 1: named Wadsley and they were like, I'm going to call

817
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:27,319
Speaker 1: this wadsleyite. And you know, it's hard to imagine what

818
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:30,760
Speaker 1: these things are like. It's not like we're just heating

819
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:33,239
Speaker 1: something up on like you heat something up on your

820
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:36,000
Speaker 1: stove and it melts, you know. He we're talking about

821
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:38,960
Speaker 1: increasing the pressures of the temperatures too, really crazy amounts.

822
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:41,520
Speaker 1: You know, in a transition region, we're talking about like

823
00:44:41,640 --> 00:44:45,239
Speaker 1: two thousand pounds per square inch of pressure. You take

824
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:47,759
Speaker 1: a rock and you squeeze it that much, it's going

825
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:50,359
Speaker 1: to cause it to flow. It's not necessarily melting. It's

826
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:53,440
Speaker 1: still technically a solid, but it's under such pressure that

827
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 1: it can flow, it can be soft. It's sort of

828
00:44:56,600 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 1: like hot unmelted wax. That is so hard to imagine

829
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: something like rock in a liquid ish state. But it

830
00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:10,960
Speaker 1: is not melted, and it's not a liquid. That's so weird.

831
00:45:11,280 --> 00:45:13,600
Speaker 1: It's really weird. And one of the fascinating things about

832
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 1: it is that this chemical structure is different from olivine,

833
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:20,320
Speaker 1: and it has little spaces in it, little like gaps

834
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:23,879
Speaker 1: where hydrogen and oxygen can slip in. So when they

835
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:26,080
Speaker 1: reproduce this stuff in the laboratory, they take like the

836
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:29,320
Speaker 1: same materials and they squeeze it down into crazy temperatures

837
00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 1: and pressures. They find that it can hold like one

838
00:45:32,080 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 1: to three percent of its weight in water. You like

839
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:36,919
Speaker 1: take the ingredients and you squeeze them down, the water

840
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 1: like disappears into the rock. It's crazy. It's like sort

841
00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:43,359
Speaker 1: of like a sponge. Well, so it's like so those

842
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 1: water molecules just get all integrated in with the rock,

843
00:45:49,360 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 1: in with the rock, and so you have wadsleyite in

844
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 1: this transition region, and if you go deeper into the

845
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:58,839
Speaker 1: lower mantle, it becomes something called ringwoodite, which you know,

846
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 1: sounds like a condition and you definitely don't want to

847
00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:04,719
Speaker 1: be died. But this stuff can also hold water, and

848
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 1: so the transition to zone, this Wesley I could have

849
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:11,799
Speaker 1: like twenty thousand parts per million of water, and ringwoodite

850
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 1: in the lower mantle can have like two thousand parts

851
00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:16,440
Speaker 1: per million. But the lower mantle is huge, like the

852
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:19,479
Speaker 1: volume is enormous. So if you add up like all

853
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:21,800
Speaker 1: of the capacity of this, they think that the mantle

854
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:25,879
Speaker 1: could hold like five to ten oceans of water. Oh

855
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 1: my god, that's incredible. So it would be absorbed into

856
00:46:31,040 --> 00:46:34,919
Speaker 1: the Wadsley I or ringwoodite, and we wouldn't necessarily see

857
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:38,600
Speaker 1: this water. But if you wanted to like extract this water,

858
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 1: would you squeeze it like a sponge or would you

859
00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:47,360
Speaker 1: unsqueeze it like a reverse sponge? Exactly, you would unsqueeze it,

860
00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:51,560
Speaker 1: And so this is something called dehydration melting. It's all

861
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 1: sort of backwards because of the crazy pressures. But if

862
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 1: slabs of this stuff come up, like float up through

863
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 1: the mantle, closer to the surface with a pressure is lower,

864
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 1: and then actually melt because of the weird chemistry. Sometimes

865
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:06,359
Speaker 1: you can melt something just by changing the pressure right

866
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:09,040
Speaker 1: without increasing the temperature. So as the pressure decreases that

867
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:11,920
Speaker 1: they melts and becomes a liquid and they produce water.

868
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 1: So you take this rock, you like, unsqueeze it and

869
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:18,520
Speaker 1: it melts and produces water. Also, it's like water comes

870
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:21,120
Speaker 1: out of the rock when it melts. It's really crazy

871
00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:24,360
Speaker 1: stuff that's really hard for me to get my mind around.

872
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 1: So it's a reverse sponge where you unsqueeze it, you

873
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:31,880
Speaker 1: remove the pressure for the water to come out. Yeah, exactly,

874
00:47:32,200 --> 00:47:33,960
Speaker 1: And you know, so far what we're talking about is

875
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:37,000
Speaker 1: like capacity for water. They've discovered that these materials that

876
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 1: are in the mantle can have water. That doesn't necessarily

877
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 1: mean that they do right, like a sponge could be dry.

878
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:45,600
Speaker 1: So then the second question is like, is there actually

879
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:48,320
Speaker 1: water in the mantle or is this just sort of

880
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:51,399
Speaker 1: like a capacity for water. So how would we I mean,

881
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 1: can we even get that far down? I mean, if

882
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:58,319
Speaker 1: it's so hot and under so much pressure, how do

883
00:47:58,400 --> 00:48:02,040
Speaker 1: we study the smith material Because it seems like any

884
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 1: little obviously no human can go down there. But even

885
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 1: if we had tools that could get that far down,

886
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:11,560
Speaker 1: how those tools even survive? How can we study this? Yeah,

887
00:48:11,560 --> 00:48:13,359
Speaker 1: it's a great question, and you're right, and we can't

888
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:15,160
Speaker 1: just like drill down to the center of the earth

889
00:48:15,200 --> 00:48:17,319
Speaker 1: and sample this stuff. But we do have a few

890
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 1: ways to study this. So number one is just like

891
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:22,920
Speaker 1: proof of principle. In the laboratory. You can take these materials,

892
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:25,359
Speaker 1: you can squeeze them, you can get them the whold water,

893
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:28,080
Speaker 1: so you can prove like that this is possible. You

894
00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:30,400
Speaker 1: can put them under pressure changes, you can see the

895
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:33,360
Speaker 1: water releasing. So they've been doing these studies, you know,

896
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 1: please folks at like living more National labs confirming like

897
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 1: that the chemistry is right. But then of course, how

898
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:40,279
Speaker 1: do you actually see that it's there. There's a few

899
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:42,320
Speaker 1: really cool ways to do it. We can't go down

900
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 1: into the earth, but one thing we can do is

901
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:47,920
Speaker 1: let the earth spit up samples for us. So sometimes,

902
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:51,360
Speaker 1: for example, in a volcano, you'll get like little bits

903
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:54,360
Speaker 1: that come up from really really far down and have

904
00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:58,480
Speaker 1: survived their journey. So for example, like sometimes volcanoes will

905
00:48:58,520 --> 00:49:02,920
Speaker 1: spew up diamonds, diamonds that were formed very very far underground,

906
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:06,440
Speaker 1: sometimes hundreds of miles under the ground, you know, hundreds

907
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:09,600
Speaker 1: of kilometers under the ground. Diamonds were formed and in

908
00:49:09,640 --> 00:49:11,680
Speaker 1: the heart of them can be like a little sample

909
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:14,720
Speaker 1: of the mantle. And because their diamond they will survive

910
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:17,319
Speaker 1: the journey up other little bits of the mantle. If

911
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:19,520
Speaker 1: they get spewed up from a volcano, you know, they

912
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:22,160
Speaker 1: change as they come up, but a diamond will preserve

913
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:25,200
Speaker 1: what's inside it. So they've actually found some of these diamonds,

914
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:27,359
Speaker 1: like down in Brazil, they went digging around and they

915
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:30,879
Speaker 1: found diamonds that have little bits of the mantle inside them,

916
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 1: and some of them have this like ringwoodite, and they

917
00:49:34,239 --> 00:49:39,520
Speaker 1: found water in them. So you can squeeze water from

918
00:49:39,520 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 1: a diamond or from I guess unsqueeze it not from

919
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:46,279
Speaker 1: the diamond, but from the ringwoodite inside it. So that

920
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:51,040
Speaker 1: old I guess old ancients saying had some truth to it,

921
00:49:51,160 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 1: except the opposite. So that's incredible. So it does have water.

922
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:58,279
Speaker 1: We know that not only can't store water, but it

923
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:01,839
Speaker 1: does have water in it. So what conclusions can we

924
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:04,919
Speaker 1: draw though from such a small sample. We can't draw

925
00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:07,840
Speaker 1: that much from just a few diamonds that it's very exciting,

926
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:11,120
Speaker 1: you know, to concretely see like actual water come out

927
00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:13,239
Speaker 1: of a rock from inside the earth. The better way

928
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 1: to study it to draw larger conclusions is to try

929
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:17,919
Speaker 1: to do larger scale studies, and so we can sort

930
00:50:17,960 --> 00:50:21,799
Speaker 1: of see inside the earth without actually going there, you know,

931
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:23,920
Speaker 1: one thing that we do to understand like all these

932
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:25,719
Speaker 1: structures of the Earth. You might wonder like, well, how

933
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:28,040
Speaker 1: do we know that there's mantle, and there's lower mental,

934
00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 1: and there's core. How do we even know about any

935
00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:32,760
Speaker 1: of that. We know about that by sending sound waves

936
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:35,880
Speaker 1: through the earth. Every time there's an earthquake that shakes

937
00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:38,760
Speaker 1: the earth, and those sound waves propagate through the earth.

938
00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:41,840
Speaker 1: And every time sound hits a barrier, you know, like

939
00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:45,080
Speaker 1: when sound hits glass or when sound it's water, it

940
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:48,080
Speaker 1: changes direction and some of it reflects. And so by

941
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:51,560
Speaker 1: listening to like the reflected sound, we can tell something

942
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:54,879
Speaker 1: about the densities and the transition regions and the sort

943
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:58,600
Speaker 1: of interfaces underground. So this is sort of like seismic

944
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:01,839
Speaker 1: studies to tell us about what's inside the earth. So

945
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:04,000
Speaker 1: we just set up a couple of speakers, put them

946
00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:06,400
Speaker 1: against the ground, and play some a C D C

947
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:09,080
Speaker 1: and kind of listen for how it comes back up.

948
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:14,160
Speaker 1: How do we actually send out and receive sound waves.

949
00:51:14,200 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 1: Do we kind of create a mechanical bat situation. We

950
00:51:18,239 --> 00:51:21,040
Speaker 1: can't do that, unfortunately. We can't create sounds strong enough

951
00:51:21,080 --> 00:51:23,239
Speaker 1: to penetrate the Earth with these studies, but the Earth

952
00:51:23,280 --> 00:51:25,720
Speaker 1: generates it for us. You know, there's thousands of tiny

953
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:29,280
Speaker 1: earthquakes going on all the time, and these are great sources.

954
00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:31,560
Speaker 1: We can do the same thing. For example, on Mars,

955
00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:34,480
Speaker 1: they have a seismic listener on the surface of Mars

956
00:51:34,560 --> 00:51:37,960
Speaker 1: now listening to Mars quakes to try to understand whether

957
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:41,360
Speaker 1: the core of Mars is solid or is liquid. We

958
00:51:41,440 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 1: have a whole podcast episode about that. By very carefully

959
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:47,200
Speaker 1: listening to these essentially ringing of the earth like a

960
00:51:47,200 --> 00:51:49,880
Speaker 1: bell due to these earthquakes, they can get a sense

961
00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:53,280
Speaker 1: for what's going on underneath, and very specifically they listen

962
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:56,360
Speaker 1: for like what's going on in these transition regions. And

963
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:59,319
Speaker 1: so this ring would it if it has water in it,

964
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:01,800
Speaker 1: then it can sink. It makes a little bit heavier,

965
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:04,799
Speaker 1: and as it drops out of the transition zone, then

966
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:06,919
Speaker 1: the pressure comes in and some of the water comes

967
00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:09,279
Speaker 1: out of it. Causing the mineral to melt because it

968
00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 1: doesn't have the water in it anymore. And then just

969
00:52:12,200 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 1: below the transition zone where this mantle materials descending, these

970
00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:18,640
Speaker 1: like pools of molten minerals form, So you get like

971
00:52:18,960 --> 00:52:22,880
Speaker 1: different behavior at the transition regions between like the mantle

972
00:52:22,960 --> 00:52:25,319
Speaker 1: and the core, the different parts of the mantle, as

973
00:52:25,400 --> 00:52:27,719
Speaker 1: some of these things, if they have water in them,

974
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:30,520
Speaker 1: rise up through it and release water as they drop

975
00:52:30,600 --> 00:52:32,799
Speaker 1: down through it. So all of this sort of activity

976
00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:36,839
Speaker 1: at the transition regions can create these like pools of

977
00:52:36,880 --> 00:52:40,920
Speaker 1: molten material and these will change how seismic waves propagate,

978
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:43,120
Speaker 1: so they can sort of tell if water is there

979
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:47,520
Speaker 1: because it changes how the seismic waves propagate, especially at

980
00:52:47,560 --> 00:52:50,080
Speaker 1: these transition regions. And they've done these studies and they

981
00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:52,640
Speaker 1: found what they think is like a massive ocean of

982
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:58,520
Speaker 1: water basically deep under North America. So we think there's

983
00:52:58,560 --> 00:53:01,359
Speaker 1: a mass ocean of water because is I mean, from

984
00:53:01,360 --> 00:53:03,560
Speaker 1: what you you described, it kind of almost sounds like

985
00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:06,479
Speaker 1: a lava lamp where you have this material sort of

986
00:53:06,680 --> 00:53:11,680
Speaker 1: melting and then unmelting and then dropping down. So we're

987
00:53:11,719 --> 00:53:17,080
Speaker 1: measuring the water based on the pools of the molten

988
00:53:18,120 --> 00:53:22,440
Speaker 1: material not, and assuming that because those exist, then the

989
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:25,920
Speaker 1: water must exist, right exactly, the water is necessary for

990
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:28,960
Speaker 1: these minerals to have these properties that create these sort

991
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:31,880
Speaker 1: of special layers that we can see with seismic bouncing.

992
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:35,359
Speaker 1: That's I know, and the picture is becoming clear and clear.

993
00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:37,919
Speaker 1: They do these other really cool studies where they look

994
00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:41,839
Speaker 1: at the electrical conductivity of the earth, right, like, how

995
00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:46,200
Speaker 1: well does electricity propagate through the earth? You might imagine, like, well,

996
00:53:46,239 --> 00:53:48,279
Speaker 1: how do you do that? You just like stick you know,

997
00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:50,120
Speaker 1: a wire in one part of the Earth and then

998
00:53:50,400 --> 00:53:52,799
Speaker 1: another one and see if you can, like you know,

999
00:53:52,960 --> 00:53:56,440
Speaker 1: send electricity through it like your finger and shove it

1000
00:53:56,440 --> 00:53:59,960
Speaker 1: in the dirt. Exactly. But again we have really large

1001
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:02,680
Speaker 1: sale questions. We can't generate those kinds of currents. But

1002
00:54:02,719 --> 00:54:05,560
Speaker 1: what we can do is look at the magnetic field

1003
00:54:05,600 --> 00:54:08,440
Speaker 1: of the Earth, which is generated we think by flowing

1004
00:54:08,520 --> 00:54:12,040
Speaker 1: currents of ionized particles deep inside the Earth and the

1005
00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:14,920
Speaker 1: magnetic field, of course, in the electric field are closely connected.

1006
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:18,160
Speaker 1: You have this dynamo effect where the magnetic field pushes

1007
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:20,120
Speaker 1: on these things and makes them to spin faster and

1008
00:54:20,160 --> 00:54:22,719
Speaker 1: creates an electric field which creates the magnetic field sort

1009
00:54:22,719 --> 00:54:25,480
Speaker 1: of self propagating. So by studying the details of the

1010
00:54:25,520 --> 00:54:28,680
Speaker 1: magnetic field, we can get a sense for how electrically

1011
00:54:28,719 --> 00:54:31,880
Speaker 1: conductive the earth is, and the presence of water in

1012
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:36,200
Speaker 1: the mantle will change that conductivity. And again they see

1013
00:54:36,239 --> 00:54:40,040
Speaker 1: evidence for conductivity changes that are consistent with there being

1014
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:44,040
Speaker 1: a lot of water underground. That's amazing. So so it

1015
00:54:44,120 --> 00:54:48,759
Speaker 1: seems like we do have a good amount of water underground.

1016
00:54:49,040 --> 00:54:52,120
Speaker 1: What does that mean? Does that mean that we're constantly

1017
00:54:52,239 --> 00:54:55,759
Speaker 1: surfing from our upper levels? I mean, I guess we are,

1018
00:54:55,840 --> 00:55:00,600
Speaker 1: because even without water, the lower layers are moving around

1019
00:55:00,880 --> 00:55:04,200
Speaker 1: and sort of like this unmelted wax situation. But what

1020
00:55:04,400 --> 00:55:06,719
Speaker 1: is next for this water? Are we going to try

1021
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:09,440
Speaker 1: to drill down and import it for rich people to drink?

1022
00:55:09,880 --> 00:55:12,960
Speaker 1: It's a really cool question. One study I read recently

1023
00:55:13,360 --> 00:55:17,640
Speaker 1: found a spot in the Baffin Islands in Canada where

1024
00:55:17,680 --> 00:55:20,000
Speaker 1: sort of the mantle is much closer to the surface,

1025
00:55:20,040 --> 00:55:23,239
Speaker 1: where it's like actually maybe accessible. There's less crust and

1026
00:55:23,239 --> 00:55:25,480
Speaker 1: more mantle, and they found samples that have a lot

1027
00:55:25,600 --> 00:55:29,080
Speaker 1: less heavy water than the surface water. So what that

1028
00:55:29,200 --> 00:55:32,239
Speaker 1: suggests is that this ocean of water that makes up

1029
00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:34,839
Speaker 1: Us and the Pacific and the Lake superior and all

1030
00:55:34,840 --> 00:55:37,640
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff may have been like late arrivals

1031
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:40,760
Speaker 1: from comets and asteroids, but the Earth may have had

1032
00:55:41,080 --> 00:55:45,000
Speaker 1: five to ten oceans of water inside it from when

1033
00:55:45,040 --> 00:55:48,400
Speaker 1: it formed, so like the true Earth water, the original

1034
00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:52,040
Speaker 1: Earth water is still deep underground somewhere, and it's not

1035
00:55:52,160 --> 00:55:54,880
Speaker 1: mixing very well. Like people don't think that the water

1036
00:55:54,960 --> 00:55:57,359
Speaker 1: that was in the Earth could have gotten there from

1037
00:55:57,400 --> 00:55:59,759
Speaker 1: asteroids and commets. There isn't time for it to like

1038
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:02,440
Speaker 1: flow all the way down to the mantle, even in

1039
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:05,120
Speaker 1: the billions of years. So it's almost like we have

1040
00:56:05,200 --> 00:56:08,120
Speaker 1: two separate water cycles, you know, the surface water and

1041
00:56:08,160 --> 00:56:10,680
Speaker 1: then the internal water, and the two haven't really mixed

1042
00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:13,680
Speaker 1: very much. If that's really interesting. It makes me wonder,

1043
00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:16,600
Speaker 1: do you know if there's any importance in terms of

1044
00:56:16,680 --> 00:56:19,480
Speaker 1: the fact that this water hasn't mixed with our surface

1045
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:24,759
Speaker 1: water in terms of the chemical composition of Earth's water,

1046
00:56:24,840 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 1: Like what having you know, less heavy water change our

1047
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:30,239
Speaker 1: oceans at all. I don't think having less heavy water

1048
00:56:30,280 --> 00:56:32,880
Speaker 1: would make much of a difference on like our biology

1049
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:35,520
Speaker 1: or anything like that. It's really tiny, tiny fraction. It's

1050
00:56:35,560 --> 00:56:38,319
Speaker 1: more useful. It's like a fingerprint. It's I think most

1051
00:56:38,360 --> 00:56:41,600
Speaker 1: helpful for understanding like how do these planets form? Where

1052
00:56:41,760 --> 00:56:43,960
Speaker 1: is the water on them? It's also really useful for

1053
00:56:44,040 --> 00:56:47,080
Speaker 1: thinking about other solar systems. You know, we're looking at

1054
00:56:47,080 --> 00:56:49,440
Speaker 1: other planets out there and other solar systems and wondering

1055
00:56:49,480 --> 00:56:52,000
Speaker 1: like is there water on them? Now we can also

1056
00:56:52,040 --> 00:56:54,319
Speaker 1: be wondering like is there water in them? Some of

1057
00:56:54,320 --> 00:56:57,800
Speaker 1: the models I read suggested that, you know, while most

1058
00:56:57,800 --> 00:57:00,080
Speaker 1: of the water that was on the surface got vaporized,

1059
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:03,080
Speaker 1: the water may have like clumped together with blobs of

1060
00:57:03,200 --> 00:57:06,759
Speaker 1: dust as the Earth was forming and protected itself sort of,

1061
00:57:07,040 --> 00:57:09,880
Speaker 1: and these primordial blobs of water then got like tucked

1062
00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:12,560
Speaker 1: deep into the earth. And we've talked so far about

1063
00:57:12,560 --> 00:57:15,239
Speaker 1: like what's in the mantle, but people wonder like it

1064
00:57:15,320 --> 00:57:18,320
Speaker 1: does the core also have water? You know, the core

1065
00:57:18,440 --> 00:57:20,840
Speaker 1: they think is iron and nickel, But for a long

1066
00:57:20,840 --> 00:57:23,000
Speaker 1: time there's been a question about whether there's anything else

1067
00:57:23,080 --> 00:57:25,200
Speaker 1: in there. We knew know that the core is a

1068
00:57:25,280 --> 00:57:27,640
Speaker 1: little bit less dense than we expect, Like if you

1069
00:57:27,680 --> 00:57:29,600
Speaker 1: imagine the core is just iron and nickel, it should

1070
00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:32,120
Speaker 1: be a little bit heavier than the core that we have.

1071
00:57:32,520 --> 00:57:34,800
Speaker 1: So now they're wondering, like maybe there's a bunch of

1072
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:37,520
Speaker 1: water mixed in with the core. That's what's making it

1073
00:57:37,600 --> 00:57:40,640
Speaker 1: less dense. And one study irate suggested it might have

1074
00:57:40,760 --> 00:57:45,200
Speaker 1: up to eighty oceans of water. That's eight zero oceans

1075
00:57:45,240 --> 00:57:47,480
Speaker 1: of water mixed into the core. So you know, a

1076
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:50,000
Speaker 1: tiny fraction of the surface water is us It turns

1077
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:52,520
Speaker 1: out a tiny fraction of the water on Earth might

1078
00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:55,040
Speaker 1: be the surface like the Pacific could just be a

1079
00:57:55,160 --> 00:57:59,000
Speaker 1: drop in the oceans that are inside the Earth. That's incredible.

1080
00:57:59,080 --> 00:58:02,560
Speaker 1: And so no owing or suspecting that there may be

1081
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:05,360
Speaker 1: a lot of water content, say in the core or

1082
00:58:05,360 --> 00:58:10,200
Speaker 1: at least in the lower mantle, does that change how

1083
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:15,000
Speaker 1: we understand how geology works. It certainly is. It's affecting

1084
00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:18,040
Speaker 1: our ideas for how these layers form and what they

1085
00:58:18,040 --> 00:58:20,040
Speaker 1: can do because they have water in it. You know,

1086
00:58:20,080 --> 00:58:22,520
Speaker 1: this is early days. This is like a pretty basic

1087
00:58:22,640 --> 00:58:25,440
Speaker 1: question about what's in the Earth, like how much water

1088
00:58:25,680 --> 00:58:28,200
Speaker 1: is there that we're only beginning to probe. And so

1089
00:58:28,240 --> 00:58:30,320
Speaker 1: what it tells you is that, like we have very

1090
00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:33,840
Speaker 1: little understanding of what's going on inside our own planet.

1091
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:37,480
Speaker 1: Very basic stuff is just now being investigated and probably

1092
00:58:37,560 --> 00:58:40,400
Speaker 1: there are future discoveries ahead, you know, about what's going

1093
00:58:40,440 --> 00:58:43,360
Speaker 1: on inside the Earth that will blow our geologists minds

1094
00:58:43,400 --> 00:58:45,880
Speaker 1: and send them all to the bar for more cosmic cocktails.

1095
00:58:46,080 --> 00:58:48,680
Speaker 1: And they didn't even need to send Bruce Willis in

1096
00:58:48,720 --> 00:58:51,760
Speaker 1: a giant drill to the center of the Earth. That's

1097
00:58:51,880 --> 00:58:54,320
Speaker 1: right exactly. And I love how we can sort of

1098
00:58:54,360 --> 00:58:57,480
Speaker 1: see inside the Earth using all of these clayer techniques.

1099
00:58:57,840 --> 00:59:00,360
Speaker 1: And maybe there are more ways to auty of this

1100
00:59:00,360 --> 00:59:02,560
Speaker 1: stuff that nobody has thought of it. Maybe somebody out

1101
00:59:02,560 --> 00:59:05,320
Speaker 1: there who's listening will invent a new way to probe

1102
00:59:05,360 --> 00:59:07,920
Speaker 1: inside the Earth, to X ray it, to give us

1103
00:59:07,960 --> 00:59:10,040
Speaker 1: a sense for like where that water is. Because I

1104
00:59:10,080 --> 00:59:13,320
Speaker 1: suspect that we're in for a lot more surprises. Yeah,

1105
00:59:13,520 --> 00:59:15,960
Speaker 1: I think tickling the Earth and see if it sneezes

1106
00:59:16,000 --> 00:59:22,200
Speaker 1: anything out of its volcanoes. All right, well, thanks everyone

1107
00:59:22,240 --> 00:59:25,320
Speaker 1: for coming along on this journey inside the Earth as

1108
00:59:25,360 --> 00:59:28,360
Speaker 1: we drink deep into the mysteries of the Earth's formation

1109
00:59:28,560 --> 00:59:32,200
Speaker 1: and it's current composition. And thanks Katie very much for

1110
00:59:32,280 --> 00:59:34,680
Speaker 1: joining us today and drinking deeply of the mysteries of

1111
00:59:34,720 --> 00:59:37,280
Speaker 1: the universe. Thanks for having me. And now I am

1112
00:59:37,360 --> 00:59:39,320
Speaker 1: only going to have water if I know it was

1113
00:59:39,360 --> 00:59:44,280
Speaker 1: imported from the art cloud. Very high maintenance and look

1114
00:59:44,280 --> 00:59:47,080
Speaker 1: out for our new fancy influencers supported bottles of Water

1115
00:59:47,560 --> 00:59:52,040
Speaker 1: Water Water. Thanks everyone for joining us. Tune in next time.

1116
00:59:59,760 --> 01:00:02,560
Speaker 1: Thank you're listening, and remember that. Daniel and Jorge Explain

1117
01:00:02,640 --> 01:00:05,480
Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio. For

1118
01:00:05,640 --> 01:00:08,560
Speaker 1: more podcast for my heart Radio, visit the I Heart

1119
01:00:08,640 --> 01:00:12,280
Speaker 1: Radio Apple Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

1120
01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:13,040
Speaker 1: favorite shows.