Talk:Origin of water on Earth

Untitled
Please note that there is a stubby thing called Origin of the world's oceans, which the German article links to. I assume they should be merged. u p p l a n d 13:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Is the French version of this article (Origine de l'eau sur la Terre) still being translated? It is much more detailed than this. Tamarkot 22:04, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I translated the German one. The french article was being translated until about a year ago I gather, and I added what there was (the bullet points at the start). If anyone is a fluent French speaker, it would be great to have the extra info put in here. --Mark Lewis 14:41, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't speak German but it seems to me "coal-rich" must be a literal translation of a technical term for which the English term is "carbonaceous." I have ventured to make this change in the article. 67.186.28.212 02:03, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I took a look at the French article; I think it needs to be cleaned up before translation. Some portions of it are disputed; anybody who wants to translate it should be sure to look at the discussion page. 67.186.28.212 02:11, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

The link to Dr. C's Oceans Online website does not work. Kier07 06:52, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 2 April 2019 and 28 June 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Andrew Shumway.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:51, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Distinguishing Sources
1. The cooling of hot gases were released causing "outgassing", potentially bringing water to Earth.

3. Liquid may have been "locked" in the Earth's rocks and leaked out over millions of years.

Outgassing is defined by Wikipedia as, "the slow release of a gas that was trapped, frozen, absorbed or adsorbed in some material." This "slow release" of a gas reads very much like the word "leaked". Items #1 and #3 should be expounded.

-- Thangalin 11:32, 23 December 2006 (PST)

Traditional way
One very traditional way is that


 * . Volcanoes erupted
 * . The Volcanoes made storms
 * . The Storms brought rain.
 * . It rained a lot,
 * . So much that it made oceans.

-- Sneaky Oviraptor18talk edits tribute 23:23, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If it's wrong, blame the public! . --Sneaky Oviraptor18talk edits tribute 23:23, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Contradiction with calvin cycle?
this is a confusing topic!

If the calvin cycle article is correct, the cycle consumes, not produces water.

This is the van Niel equation that was discovered using purple sulfur bacteria, where the bacteria did not release Oxygen gas during their process of making carbohydrates. Check almost any college level Biology text--. (RiverdaleBioGuy (talk) 22:00, 19 January 2010 (UTC))

To me, the section on "The role of organisms" is extremely unclear. I was going to edit it for clarity when I realised I didn't know exactly what was being said. Indigo990 (talk) 22:37, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

The Calvin Cycle article clearly states, “…convert carbon dioxide and water into organic compounds[2] that can be used by the organism (and by animals that feed on it).” This would make the suggestion in the Origin of water on Earth article incorrect. Why not just remove it? Andrew Colvin (talk) 01:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

The Calvin Cycle does not make water. I edited the section for accuracy and clarity. Photosynthesis using sulfur is possible; the water contribution today is negligible, but it is debatable how significant this contribution was. A cursory search did not turn up any scientific articles suggesting this, but I was reluctant to remove the section completely. Anyone have citations for the theory? 74.248.218.179 (talk) 01:30, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

New information on ocean formation
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/63397/title/Between_the_sheets

Contradiction with evolution of the solar system
This article appears to contradict the Formation and evolution of the Solar System article. It that article it states that "The inner Solar System, the region of the Solar System inside 4 AU, was too warm for volatile molecules like water and methane to condense, so the planetesimals that formed there could only form from compounds with high melting points, such as metals (like iron, nickel, and aluminium) and rocky silicates.". In this article, it seems to imply that the water was already present.

99.241.217.164 (talk) 18:18, 16 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You can change it to make sense if you would like.  A. Z. Colvin  •  Talk  20:28, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I fully agree with this posted contradiction. The inner solar system especially within 1.5 AU was too warm for lighter volatiles to form separately due to the solar wind driving them toward the outer solar system. Of course, some lighter volatiles chemically combined with heavier metals then fell to or accreted to form the inner planets. These lighter hydrous compounds either become locked deeply into the forming mantle or rapidly differentiated to the surface to then be boiled away. There is no chance for liquid water to form on the surfaces of the inner planets unless Mars near the 'snow line' held its forming liquid water for a brief span.

An alternative hypothesis should be included that posits primeval Earth was originally located near the 'snow line' between Mars and Jupiter. Then a solid crust could quickly form and lighter volatiles differentiated to the surface to form a CO2 atmosphere causing H20 to liquify. The hypothesis can easily explain the ancient liquid water dated at 4.4 billion years.

An alternative hypothesis should be included in this article. A 'disruption theory' well supported by past scientists gives it credence along with the new isotopic and mineralogy studies of asteroids, meteorites, and Earth's mantle.

Doug Ettinger, champion of EMMQuack04quack (talk) 17:05, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

The Earth is now cool enough for the gravity that it has to not only hold onto such water vapor that it has but also even to catch any water molecules drifting by (especially in comets). (Such is so for methane and ammonia, but these are not in equilibrium with an oxygen-rich atmosphere possible only because of photosynthesis that itself depends upon water). It is not cool enough to collect or even hold hydrogen or helium, so the Earth cannot become a gas giant planet whose atmosphere contains large quantities of hydrogen or helium. Such has been so for the Earth since just after its formation. Such is not so on Venus (too hot) or Mars (gravity too weak). Pbrower2a (talk) 00:34, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Water in the Earth's mantle
It doesn't surprise me, that this Wiki article doesn't mention a thing, about the 3 times the amount of Ocean water was discovered deep in the Earth's mantle, in June of 2014. http://www.livescience.com/46292-hidden-ocean-locked-in-earth-mantle.html

Also someone added a potentially 'unreliable source' link to the page: http://www.nature.com/news/earth-has-water-older-than-the-sun-1.16011 Zykodern (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:52, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Please see my comment below. We hope you will join the discussion!

BurrME64 (talk) 16:32, 17 February 2017 (UTC)BurrME64

Reorganize sections?
This article currently has the following structure:

1 Possible sources

1.1 Extraplanetary sources

1.2 Internal sources

2 Water in the development of the Earth

3 Role of organisms

I think item 1.2 (Internal sources) should be grouped with 3 (Role of organisms) since they both deal with internal sources, i.e., water that was already here in some form or other (hydroxyls, etc). These two items are also very small, although the volcano thing could be expanded. For example, we could mention how water gets subducted with oceanic plates in the form of hydrated silicates in the sediment at the top, also how much water rocks can hold (a lot) and how big volcanoes can get (the latest estimate for the Siberian traps is 4.5 million cubic kilometers or lava and ash).

Meanwhile, the bulk of section 1 (Possible sources) deals with what is commonly known as the Dry Earth scenario, while section 2 (Water in the development of the Earth) focuses mainly on the Wet Earth scenario.

Personally I think we should rename these sections "Dry Earth scenario" and "Wet Earth scenario." If you do a Google search on the terms "dry earth" or "wet earth" along with the word "astrophysics" (or any related term such as "protoplanetary") you will see that these terms are widely used. Same for Google Scholar.

It would help to separate out the various components of these theories. For example, one version of Dry Earth has all the water coming from comets during the Late Heavy Bombardment. Then there's a version of Dry Earth that has much of water coming from minerals in asteroids.

One point of contention is the Frost line (astrophysics) which is currently on the outer fringes of the asteroid belt. More recent thinking on protoplanetary disks is that they are thick, with frost lines that are two-dimensional temperature gradients, with the vertical dimension going from the cool, shady interior of the disk to the warm, sunny surface, with a second gradient stretching from very close to a star out to a considerable distance.

Then there's the issue of water-rich minerals such as olivine forming in the earliest stages of protoplanetary disk development, as particles of cosmic dust collide with each other in an environment rich in water molecules.

Next, there is the radioactive element Aluminum 26, which heated planetesimals to molten white hot within the first million years or so. This raises the question of how much water would have survived.

Related issues involve iron 60, which would have heated larger planetesimals or planetoids. Also, heat from collisions, settling (friction, contraction).

For each of these items there are well-researched arguments going both ways.

Zyxwv99 (talk) 03:01, 4 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Once again we will attempt to join this debate and try to provide some perspective i the hopes that less ideological and dogmatic reviewers and editors will seek to advance this issue. Back in November we created an article on "Primary water" that resulted in lengthy debate and ultimately deletion via redirect to "Magmatic water". Same for the article "Primordial water". It now proven in two independent laboratories that planet Earth indeed creates water--in the core, mantle and crust:
 * "Planet Earth makes its own water from scratch deep in the mantle"
 * https://www.newscientist.com/article/2119475-planet-earth-makes-its-own-water-from-scratch-deep-in-the-mantle/
 * The term Primary water goes back over a century as was fully explained and extensively footnoted in the Primary water article. Because the term "Primary" is somewhat broad, articles on "Primary rock" and "Primary minerals" were added which have interestingly not been deleted or redirected. To differentiate primary (earth-generated) water from the debate on the existence and source of any original waters, an article on "Primordial water" was submitted which was also deleted by re-direction to "Magmatic water". The term "Magmatic water" which volcanology does not attempt to fully explain really only covers one aspect of how hydrigen and oxygen combine under the electro-mechanical forces of our planet to produce water--in all its forms: gas (vapor), solid (in our crystalline bedrock) and liquid.
 * Is there a place in "1.2 Internal sources" for this discussion? Primary water refers to H2O in its liquid phase created by geo-chemical and geo-physical processes. Labs in Japan (2014) and Canada (2017) have independently replicated this process. But there is a vast amount of peer-reviewed research--from seismologists, mineralogists, geo-chemists, geo-physicists and even astro-biologists who have taken up the science of water because hydrology has become a sub-discipline of civil engineering (hydraulics) and geology (hydrogeology) where rock takes precedence over water. Thoughts?
 * BurrME64 (talk) 16:32, 17 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I would appreciate Dry Earth and Wet Earth sections. Recent literature on the wet-earth scenario: 10.1029/2018JE005698.
 * Earth' surface will become dry again: 10.1038/d41586-018-07335-8
 * --Rainald62 (talk) 21:40, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

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God
Why is there no mention of God in this article? God is a common explanation as to why Earth has lots of water, yet each time I've added such it has been reverted. 2602:306:3653:8440:D98E:54BC:EAC1:5A78 (talk) 22:12, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Probably because a connection of God to terrestrial water usually results in a discussion of young-earth creationism and Flood geology widely and uniformly reviled as scientific explanations of water and Earth and of no value in science. Judeo-Christian and Islamic morality do not depend upon the reliability of either creationism or the Biblical flood; morality is outside the topic.

In any event, the discussion of water itself goes back to the meeting of hydrogen and oxygen atoms possible only after oxygen was formed in stellar nucleosynthesis and expulsion of oxygen and hydrogen from pulsating or dying stars with cooling to temperatures at which hydrogen and oxygen would react to form water.Pbrower2a (talk) 04:36, 26 September 2022 (UTC)


 * God is a common explanation? Please cite your peer-reviewed sources. I'm sure I can find a plethora of supernatural "explanations" for just about anything. They are without significant scientific merit. (The belief in the supernatural *is* a valid subject of psychology, psychiatry and sociology.) It's hard to believe someone has posted this unmeritorious content in good faith. (pun intended)98.17.181.251 (talk) 18:50, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
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±== Is Earth becoming more or less massive? ==

This article says: "When the Earth was younger and less massive, "

The Earth Mass article says "The combined effect is a net loss of material, "

This is a fundamental contradiction, making the whole article suspect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C6:3087:9F01:A1D2:3508:2E17:58D7 (talk) 09:44, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

According to the Bible Earth always had water
Why is this not mentioned anywhere in the article? The Bible says that Earth always had water so if the Bible is correct there was never an origin of water on Earth. 172.58.171.122 (talk) 18:45, 22 October 2020 (UTC)


 * The Bible is not a reliable source. Even if Earth "always had water", it would still have an origin because Earth must have come from somewhere. Saucy[talk – contribs] 01:12, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Water
Water in the world you tane Shara jibon ta ki na jo bhi hua hi friend love to see if you have time for the same you tane hat ta dhore amar mathata dhuke 114.31.174.0 (talk) 14:47, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Is hydrogen to deuterium ratio better?
The section “Geochemical analysis of water in the Solar System” states: “The deuterium to hydrogen ratio for ocean water on Earth is known very precisely to be (1.5576 ± 0.0005) × 10−4.” While the source material supports this statement, wouldn’t it be more clear to reverse it to the hydrogen to deuterium ratio, which would be 6420 ± 2 just as precisely? Glenn L (talk) 05:19, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: EEB 4611-Biogeochemical Processes-Spring 2024
— Assignment last updated by LynSchwendy (talk) 03:29, 14 May 2024 (UTC)