14 DAY TRIAL // Water believed to be at least 1.5 billion years old has been discovered by a team of researchers, who detail their findings in an article published this past May 15 in the scientific journal Nature.
The water was found in a mine located at about 2.4 kilometers below the Earth's surface in Ontario, Canada.
Given the fact that this water has spent billions of years trapped in the underground, without ever coming into contact with the air in the mine, the researchers believe that a thorough analysis of its chemical make-up might shed new light on how life came about on our planet.
Furthermore, they say that, because the rocks trapping this water and the rocks found on Mars are fairly similar, their findings might help scientists gain a better understanding of whether or not life-sustaining water might also be buried somewhere on the red planet.
“We've found an interconnected fluid system in the deep Canadian crystalline basement that is billions of years old, and capable of supporting life.”
“Our finding is of huge interest to researchers who want to understand how microbes evolve in isolation, and is central to the whole question of the origin of life, the sustainability of life, and life in extreme environments and on other planets,” Professor Chris Ballentine of the University of Manchester reportedly said.
Preliminary analyses have shown that this water is particularly rich in dissolved methane and hydrogen, as well as various forms of helium, neon, argon and xenon.
Therefore, it might sustain microbial life.
According to Nature, the researchers first assumed that the water was “merely” several tens, maybe even hundreds of millions of years old.
However, once taking up the task to date it, they discovered that it dates back to at least 1 billion years ago. In fact, some say that the water might just be a whopping 2.7 billion years old.
Geochemist Pete Burnard commented on the water's chemical make-up and possible age as follows:
“The isotopic compositions that they see in these samples are extremely strange, and the preferred explanation in the article seems to me the most likely one. For the moment, I think we have to conclude that there are 1.5-billion-year-old fluids trapped in the crust.”
Presently, the researchers are trying to figure out whether or not the water does indeed house any life.