Talk:Hydrosphere

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 3 February 2020 and 24 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): MeganERenz.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 January 2019 and 9 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jocelyn519, Carbohydrate Fatty acid. Peer reviewers: Kthay1197, Andrewlin1.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:07, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

"Earth Spheres" article?
Hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere, etc are all pretty small articles. Perhaps they should be combined into a "Spheres of the Earth" article? - Iotha 20:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with that it seems like a good idea I  Love Plankton 17:21, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Mantle and core
At the moment, I can't see the relevance of the following passage to the hydrosphere:
 * The mantle and core are the heavy interior of the Earth, making up most of the Earth's mass.

As far as I know, neither of these contain any water or interact with it in a significant way (I can think of a significant phenomenon, and b) if it is, that needs explaining in more detail!

I have therefore removed it. If someone can illuminate the link between mantle and hydrosphere, please do so in the article!) - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree it had no reason being in there I  Love Plankton 02:36, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I want to point out that someone has hacked the Hydrosphere page.

"A porn that has gained popularity among scientists is that the early Earth was a meat ball and aliens os mars where eaten it. subjected to a period of bombardment by Comets and water-rich Asteroids. Much of the water on the surface today is thought to have originated from the outer parts of the solar system, such as macaroni and chesee.

[edit] crazy ages Main article: Ice age During the time of old and crazy stupid people there have been a series of periods in which a significant portion of the hydrosphere was locked up in the form of glacial ice."

While some may find this amusing, I find it annoying.

Michael Vaughan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.184.201.147 (talk) 23:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC) i see you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.122.0.200 (talk) 16:41, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the mantle at least contains very large amounts of H2O, probably most of the H2O on Earth. That's probably why it was mentioned. The question is whether this should count as part of the "hydrosphere". If it doesn't, then the definition of "hydrosphere" given at the top the article ( "The hydrosphere is the combined mass of water found on, under, and above the surface of a planet, minor planet, or natural satellite." ) may need to be changed.

As for my source for how much water is in the mantle, I've been reading (or more accurately skimming) a lot of geology and planetary science papers. These are some papers I've come across that might help, particularly the first one, which estimates that up to 77% of the H2O on Earth could have been trapped in the mantle when the Earth formed:

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017GC006937 (The origin of volatiles in the Earth’s mantle, Saswata Hier-Majumder & Marc M. Hirschmann)

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2003GC000597 or https://www.geol.umd.edu/~mcdonoug/KITP%20Website%20for%20Bill/papers/Mantle-Comp/Salters_Stracke_(G3_03.pdf (Composition of the depleted Mantle, Vincent J. M. Salters & Andreas Stracke, check pg. 17, 19, & 22)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333777490_Identifying_volatile_mantle_trend_with_the_water-fluorine-cerium_systematics_of_basaltic_glass ; (Title in url, authors=Kenji Shimizu, Motoo Ito, Qing Chang, Takashi Miyazaki, Kenta Ueki, Chiaki Toyama, Ryoko Senda, Bogdan S. Vaglarov, Tsuyoshi Ishikawa, Jun-Ichi Kimura)

Wyllie, Peter J. and Ryabchikov, Igor D. (2000) Volatile Components, Magmas, and Critical Fluids in Upwelling Mantle. Journal of Petrology, 41 (7). pp. 1195-1206. ISSN 0022-3530. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20111209-135629440

One behind a paywall that I haven't payed is https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S0869591106050031 (Composition and chemical structure of oceanic mantle plumes, V. I. Kovalenko, V. B. Naumov, A. V. Girnis, V. A. Dorofeeva & V. V. Yarmolyuk), but it does give an estimate for the average H2O concentration of mantle plumes in the abstract (520 ppm).

The water in the mantle is stored at very low concentrations, but the mantle contains so much more volume than the crust and lower atmosphere that the water content of the mantle may still exceed the amount on or near the Earth's surface. It also cannot be ruled out that small amounts of "water" may even exist in the Earth's core, since very strange mixtures can become soluble in each other at extreme pressures and temperatures. That being said, much of the "H2O" in the mantle is likely not actually in the form of H2O molecules, but rather in the form of hydroxide (OH(-)) groups and ions, due to reactions of the sort:

O2- + H2O → 2 OH-, or similar, according to

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264088476_Water-melt_interaction_in_hydrous_magmatic_systems_at_high_temperature_and_pressure (by Bjorn Mysen)

Spectral Evidence

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279938481_Infrared_spectroscopy_of_hydrous_silicate_melts_to_1000C_and_10_kbar_direct_observation_of_H2O_speciation_in_a_diamond-anvil_cell (by Andy H Shen)

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40645-015-0052-7 (Water and magmas: insights about the water solution mechanisms in alkali silicate melts from infrared, Raman, and 29Si solid-state NMR spectroscopies, Charles Le Losq, Bjorn O. Mysen & George D. Cody)

This conversion of water molecules to hydroxides is invoked to explain density and viscosity changes in https://academic.oup.com/petrology/article/52/7-8/1333/1538084 (Density and Viscosity of Hydrous Magmas and Related Fluids and their Role in Subduction Zone Processes, Alistair C. Hack, Alan B. Thompson; under "Structural implications of viscosities of NaAlSi3O8 + H2O fluids and melts") and https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321008752_Density_of_hydrous_magma (by Tatsuya Sakamaki, mentioned at top of 2nd page), and also mentioned in http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1983AREPS..11...75M (The structure of silicate melts, Bjørn O. Mysen; check pg. "88", under "Volatiles (H20 and CO2) in Silicate Melts")

This fact that much of the "H2O" in the mantle is actually OH, may be one argument against including it in the hydrosphere on technical grounds, and there are probably better reasons for excluding it on less pedantic grounds, like the fact that the concentration is so low and that including it would massively extend the range of parts of the Earth that the "hydrosphere" would be said to exist in. That being said, H2O is the largest component of volcanic gas, which does contribute to the surface hydrosphere, and might be where much or most of the hydrosphere came from in the first place, and I suspect that H2O returns to the mantle through the crust, either as hydrated minerals or as ground water; so water in the mantle should probably be mentioned, even if the mantle itself isn't considered a proper part of the hydrosphere.

Also, water in the mantle and lower crust may exist as either hydroxides or full H2O molecules, and, in addition to being dissolved at low concentrations in mostly rocky magma, may also exist as part (often the main part) of a separate, usually supercritical, low-viscosity fluid which coexists with the denser and more viscous solid or liquid phases that are mostly rock. (This is often called "fluid" and differentiated from mostly non-volatile liquid magma called "melt".) This is certainly possible deep into the crust, and I think into the mantle, though I'm not sure how deep into the Earth this is common or even present at all. In fact, I suspect it is still up for quite a bit of debate, but this paper about the mutual solubilities and phase transitions of geological materials in the deep crust and mantle does claim to address this question at some point: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250130695_Phase_Relations_Involving_Hydrous_Silicate_Melts_Aqueous_Fluids_and_Minerals (by Alistair Hack & Alan Bruce Thompson), and I think the very first paper I linked to claims that the Earth's mantle contains more volatiles than should be soluble in it, implying to me that much of these volatiles exist may as a separate fluid, though I also think it's quite likely that I'm completely wrong there, since I know that magma and water at least generally become completely miscible at high enough pressures and temperatures, including in conditions met fairly high up in the mantle.

As a final note, I haven't REALLY read any of the papers I linked to yet. I've only skimmed them and read some of the parts I cared about, and I've barely even done that to some of them, so you probably shouldn't just trust what I say too much, but rather actually look in the papers, since I'm not a geologist or anything like that.DubleH (talk) 09:56, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Hydrological Cycle
The section on Hydrological Cycle started: Insulation, or energy (in the form of heat and light) from the sun ...

I believe that the correct term in this context is Insolation, not Insulation. If this is correct, I'd suggest a re-write that does not start with a relatively unknown word (Insolation) and then define it, especially if that word is easily confused with Insulation. The re-write I'd suggest is

Energy from the sun, in the form of heat and light (Insolation) ... and include the link to the extant Wiki page on Insolation.

Update - In the absence of feedback, I went ahead and modified the entry.

Scifipete (talk) 16:51, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

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So enormously annoying
It is just simply amazing that the "editors" of this think it's "ok" to use volume as units here. You would think that anyone with a 6th Grade education would know that mass doesn't depend on temperature, while volume does. Can anyone point to the place in this article where the amount of MASS of water that the oceans, ice caps, lakes and rivers hold is mentioned? I can't find it. But at least I know how much is in the hydrosphere, whatever that is. (And by the way, the actual amount of water in the interior of the Earth is MORE than the rest (surface and atmosphere) combined AND the amount there is HIGHLY uncertain, including in the core and mantle. It should NOT be mentioned in the lead, especially not as if it has an established consensus value (in tonnes).)40.142.179.182 (talk) 15:28, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Revert. Oldie.
Currently;
 * Approximately 75% of Earth's surface, an area of some 361 million square kilometers (139.5 million square miles), is covered by ocean.

75% has been there since 8Dec 2010, it was 71% before. It’s 71% at Ocean (and my books). 361/510 is 70.8%. MBG02 (talk) 20:20, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Condition
History /geo 41.223.76.63 (talk) 12:20, 1 May 2022 (UTC)