World’s Oldest Water

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World’s Oldest Water

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In one of the world’s deepest mines, scientists have discovered some of the world’s oldest water. In northern Canada, the Kidd Creek Mine is almost 10,000 ft deep. Here, miners search for copper, zinc, and silver ore in volcanic material that was once the floor of an ancient sea. At the very bottom of the mine, they drilled an exploratory borehole even farther down to look for more metal ore. What they found was possibly the oldest water in the world, trapped in the rocks for more than 2 billion years. Why is this important? It provides a snapshot of Earth from that far distant time before there was anything but single-celled life on the planet. And what was water like then? Very different. The water from this ancient sea is eight times saltier than today’s ocean water. Trapped in it are helium, argon, neon, krypton, and xenon gases. And, surprisingly, sulfur isotopes which show that ancient single-celled organisms must have lived in it long ago. Scientists are still analyzing this ancient water, in hopes of better understanding not only our juvenile Earth, but also the types of extreme environments we may find elsewhere, like on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, where there are vast oceans of water trapped beneath ice sheets. If basic life forms existed in our ancient water, without sunlight or any contact with the surface, it is possible we will find them in other places, too.

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