Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Primary water


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete and redirect to Magmatic water. The spirited defense by several SPAs and IPs is not policy based, in contrast to those arguing for deletion. Randykitty (talk) 12:27, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Primary water

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Someone had to bite the bullet, so here goes. This is promotion of a fringe topic. It relies essentially on one non-neutral source to establish notability, the rest is fluff. The author also removed an "original research" tag. See also Primary rock. Lithopsian (talk) 18:43, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete, then redirect to magmatic water. The 100+ references don't do anything to disguise its nature, as an essay set out to right great wrongs: the "dogma" of the hydrological cycle. The core idea here, that the bulk of earth's water originates in the mantle, is unquestionably fringe science. I'll avoid dumping a bunch of citations of my own here, but that is simply not the accepted understanding of mantle/water interaction. Most of the actual reliable sources cited here (for example: the 2015 Hallis et al. article in Science) simply do not support the claims they are being used to argue for here. In that sense, the article is indeed original research; it is a novel synthesis of sources--some reliable, some not--to support an argument that those sources do not make (and would not agree with). There's no way to fix this. There's no reason to fix this. I'd support deletion of the primary rock article, too; although there's actually maybe an article that could be written on that topic (as a historical concept in geology), what we have right now sure is not it. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 19:36, 13 October 2016 (UTC) Amended original !vote; the article supporter's efforts to justify retention have done nothing to change my opinion that this is novel synthesis in support of a fringe theory. However, they have demonstrated that it is a viable search term; there is nothing at all to be gained by retaining the current content. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:16, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. I would certainly agree that this is fringe (see, for example, the FAQ question Why haven't we heard of "primary water" before?) and that the vast array of sources are mostly used an input for conclusion synthesis rather than as the source of a conclusion itself. There is an array of websites that seem to support the idea (,, , etc), but I have not been able to find any references to primary water in scholarly sources at all. So even as a fringe theory it seems that it is not notable enough for inclusion, at least not until it is addressed by independent sources. Also note the article Primary minerals, created in the same vain as Primary rock. Sjrct (talk) 22:51, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * There's some hope for an article at primary mineral (for minerals unaltered by later chemical processes. And a tiny bit of hope for primary rock (mostly in a historical context, referring to Arduino and Werner's systems of lithography). Whether the current content deserves TNT is probably a separate issue to the mess that is primary water. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 16:40, 14 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep. Well, where to begin? The short articles on Primary rock and Primary minerals were specifically added to indicate that such concepts certainly exist. None other than Webster's Dictionary from 1913 (reference corrected) carried an entry for "Primary rock" which further supports the point of the PW article that these were terms very conversant to geologists and mineralogists a century ago, with primary minerals deriving from primary rock--following the early convention of Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and Quaternary geologic periods. Did you check the works of Spurr et al. (all digitally available online) where they debate extensively the deep earth source of primary minerals?  We were not interested in writing lengthy articles on those subjects, but (historical) geologists are certainly welcome to expand on these.  The article on "Origin of water on Earth" certainly discusses earliest (Archean and Hadean) planetary waters but does not cover the concept of earth-generated water that is now being discussed in multiple scientific disciplines, but almost absent in hydrology. Therefore why significant effort needed to be made to make the case for geo-hydrology which is emerging in some universities as a specific discipline (although more a sub-discipline of geophysics rather than hydrology) related to groundwater. For this reason your placing PW under "hydrology" is objectionable.  The article on hydro-geology mentions the term geo-hydrology but only as a synonym of the first, which is inadequate at best, especially when geo-sciences exist such as geo-chemistry and geo-physics etc. The PW article could have been titled "New water" based on Salzman's book-- did you read the forward (available digitally via Hathi Trust website) by Aldous Huxley, or is he a "fringe" intellectual? Thus the decision was made to add a "Terminology" section stating the many terms for Groundwater (another totally inadequate article) to substantiate the reasoning behind reviving the term primary water which certainly Nordenskiold and his generation of the late 1800s in Europe were totally familiar with (as written in their languages). All other terms are basically a subcategory of earth-generated primary water just as the secondary minerals are derived from primary minerals. Interesting comment on the Q&A. A range of millennials was canvassed on the article and the most common response was: Thanks for the Q&A, wish more Wiki articles did that.  We all know their attention span... As for Hallis not agreeing with this concept, did you contact her? She is now in Glasgow but reach out to any current or former member of NASA JPL's astro-biology team (you know, the folks charged with finding water outside our planet). Try the UCSB dissertation of former NASA bio-chemist Randy Mielke who recreated a thermal vent in a laboratory to replicate the origin of microbial life as applicable to the search for planets with magma (including our moon). How about the referenced Dr. Steven Jacobsen at Northwestern whose 25 years of deep earth seismology has now proven the existence of the hydrous mantle transition zone--yet another article missing from Wikipedia. Do we need to write all articles related to our topic, as I have done for Primary rock and Primary minerals? Addition of graphics no doubt would have helped the reviewers, it seems, but apparently these must be added to WikiMedia first. Such effort is underway. Last comment: there seems little doubt that had Wikipedia existed in the 16th century Copernicus's theory of a heliocentric solar system would have been declared "fringe" even though he may have quoted extensively from Heraclides, Aristarchus and the Pythagoreans!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by BurrME64 (talk • contribs) 01:10, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I most definitely agree with you that if Wikipedia existed in the 16th century, Copernicus's heliocentric solar system theory would be declared as fringe. This, however, is because at the time it was indeed fringe. A geocentric solar system was the generally accepted view and that is what Wikipedia would have primarily covered, even though an examination of the evidence by the editors may have proven to them that Copernicus was correct. This is by design. It is not the purpose of Wikipedia editors to determine what is correct or true, rather it is to assemble information from reliable secondary sources whom have already done so. So even if someone in the 16th century wrote an article on the heliocentric model of the solar system citing Heraclides et al, it would most undoubtedly be a case of synthesis of ideas from those sources to form the heliocentric conclusion, which is undoubtedly contrary to the function of Wikipedia. Sjrct (talk) 16:10, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * For reference: New water for a thirsty world by Michael H Salzman Sjrct (talk) 16:10, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Sjrct continues to win us all bets made with those who could not believe such an article would receive any push back from the lords of Wikipedia (supposedly "the people's encyclopedia", but I advised them it is far from it, as you have proven!) Your profile indicates you are an "eventualist" which beggars the question how Wikipedia will ever achieve value with such thinking. Wikipedia would not have published an article on Copernicus in the 16th century? That says it all... We have pointed to the article on Origins of water on Earth which does above average justice to the well-developed debate on the meteoric versus terrestrial (or proto-nebular etc.) origin of water.  Did you look at the many articles in Nature and Science (I think those qualify as respected scientific journals--unless of course they conflict with "established" WikiScience) describing the recent discovery of proof of "Oceans of Water Beneath Our feet"? Yes, as usual, these are hyperbolic headlines (shameful for respected gatekeepers to engage in) but apparently they are necessary to catch the eye of even blinkered Wiki editors let alone distracted millennials...or are they one and the same? Most of the articles mention "theories 50 years old" but of course do not specify who and where and what. Expecting the silly attempt to attack anything that might not benefit the fearmongers of Peak Oil (dead and buried) and now Peak Water, we have provided abundant historical context for such 50-year old theories that had their genesis well back into the 1800s, if not back to Agricola or even Pliny or Thales himself. It was the Neo-Platonists whose philosophy dominated the Dark Ages, and once again the New Neo-Platonists (second or third incarnation) have attempted to close the gates using A PRIORI arguments that only the uneducated fail to see. Example? Why do plate tectonics (and thus almost all the earth sciences in America, but not in many other regions) believe that the Earth must be Steady State? Once again, well back into the 1800s theories posited an expanding earth--and once the oceans were mapped and dated they discovered not only did South America connect to Africa but Australia had once connected to...North America. Yes, Pangaea existed, but without oceans, on an Earth almost half the present diameter. All of the geological, stratigraphic, fossil, geodetic and paleomagnetic data proves it: throw it all into a computer science laboratory and the only way you achieve 99+% correlation is on a much smaller planet. (Yes, Wikipedia covers this under Expanding Earth, very poorly and condescendingly, even though there are countless scientific supporters of this theory who hold conferences, publish peer-reviewed papers--of course largely outside of the increasingly discredited U.S. scientific establishment.) Everything in the Universe is expanding from macro to micro scale but somehow, using a priori argumentation, the Earth is perfectly stable? Aha, you will say once again this is "fringe" science...  Read Carey's book, published by Stanford University no less, "Theories of the Universe: A History of Dogma in the Earth Sciences" and challenge his science (or his analysis of dogma which may only be outdone by Arthur Koestler). EE moved mainstream with James Maxlow, a disciple of Carey in Australia, who has a large global following. Just because American academia has become overwhelmingly politicized and ossified into bureaucratic-think, do not underestimate that many other academic and research institutions are surpassing us. How many of America's Nobel laureates in science are "home grown" so to speak? Less and less each year. Before you attempt to delete this article, I suggest you spend some time actually reading the many references, start with Salzman's expose--why should such a scholarly book be bought up and destroyed nearly to a copy so that a harmless paperback should now be priced like a rare item? Yet all of the USGS libraries (and many top universities) retain copies. Once again, attempt was made in the article (in expectation of some of the shock that Wikipedia, at this late stage, could actually have at a new article of import rather than the deluge of inane lists and pop star bios) to put Primary Water in the context of the vicious Water Wars of California, once again playing out before the world's eyes, history repeating itself down to the governor's mansion itself. Not sure if the formal statement for the record by Senator Estes Kefauver on Riess and New/Primary Water was included in the references, but the topic was of deep interest in the 1950-60s, and largely private interests (mostly German (e.g., Adolf Schoepe) and Jewish (e.g. Nathan K. Mendelsohn), somewhat unfortunately, who were not particularly liked by the segregationist Democratic Party and post-WWII sentiments of the times) arrayed against politicians, bankers and Big Ag (and their Republican politicos). I will finish by asking that this article be removed from "Hydrology" and placed under a new category of "Geo-hydrology" (spelled with a hyphen to emphasize the "geo" nature of the earth-generated origin of water and the study thereof) where we are happy to remain as the sole entry. Or would you like us to create that reference too? — Preceding unsigned comment added by BurrME64 (talk • contribs) 18:48, 14 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep. This comment was added at the top: "The Primary Water contribution is a valuable collection of hard to find references for a subject of great and increasing importance. While known under a variety of names over central centuries, the phenomenon is well established by qualified researchers and receives more and more collaboration by scientists studying the composition of the mantle and transition zone. It helps explain how oceans first appeared on Earth and why all the great fresh water bodies in the world sit atop major rifts or fracture zones - and a host of other hydrological marvels like desert oases, volcanic lakes, the artesian wells in Australia's great basin and first magnitude springs found throughout the world. I don't find any sensible reason to delete such cutting edge research. I don't know how to terminate this post properly, so will just stop here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.90.38.132 (talk) 05:50, 15 October 2016 (UTC)"
 * It should be added that the article represents no cutting edge "original research" but rather presents a new article on a century or two old term in geology as relates to earth-generated water (in all its phases: liquid, gas/vapor, and solid/crystalline). — Preceding unsigned comment added by BurrME64 (talk • contribs)  Ambox warning pn.svg — Duplicate vote: BurrME64 (talk • contribs)  has already cast a vote above.
 * Incorrect! As stated, this entry was added at the top of this page by 76.90.38.132 so I placed it in the string of comments.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by BurrME64 (talk • contribs) 19:23, 17 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep. In the interest of supporting primary water information online, I would like to add the following information. Pal Pauer, geologist and hydrologist, with over 40 years of field experience looking for, and finding, optimal sites for drilling water wells, recently drilled two test wells, at around 6,000 ft. elevation, in fractured rock strata, near the upthrust Garlock Fault in central California, nowhere near any alluvial aquifer / water table.  He found water at both sites at less than a hundred feet from the surface, under pressure, and with a constant flow rate.  He certainly has vindicated his mentor, Dr. Stephan Riess, Austrian astrophysicist, who spent over 20 years drilling for water, and often finding it in fractured bedrock strata of granite and basalt.  More recently Paul Hertz, Astrophysicist, and Director of NASA's Astrophysics Division at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, presented compelling evidence, courtesy of images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, of water jets erupting to a height of 150 miles above the icy surface of Europa, a moon of Jupiter.  This article was published in the Wall Street Journal.  One must wonder at the intense pressure needed to throw water up to 150 miles distance from the moon's surface.   published by United Press International.  Astrophysicists at NASA are proving that water is formed within bodies in space, such as Europa, a frozen moon, without clouds or rainfall.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by WhiteTigerGO (talk • contribs) 00:05, 16 October 2016 (UTC)  — WhiteTigerGO (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 07:19, 16 October 2016 (UTC)


 * the Wikipediaspeak for "do not delete a page" is keep, not "publish", which is an interesting lapsus. I suggest you read one of Wikipedia's core policies, WP:OR, which says Wikipedia should not get ahead of mainstream science, no matter how corrupt or incorrect it is (to make it short).
 * Wiki-speak...this exercise is becoming more Orwellian with every comment. Was it too hard for you change Publish to Keep? It is done. This is absolutely "mainstream" science--and has been for over 100 years, albeit sidelined by the bankrupt discipline of Hydrology which is largely the point of having to spend so much time on the topic. Does the concept of Primary Rock exist. Yes: now Archean etc. Does the concept of Primary Minerals exist? Yes: they are produced from Primary/Archean rock. Does Primary Water exist? Undeniably. Hydrogen and oxygen exist deep into the mantle and combine under the electromechanical forces of our planet to create H2O in all its phases, the source of our fluid dynamics, crystalline bedrock and minerals...
 * Tigraan did not change "Publish" to "Keep" as it is generally against policy to edit the comments of another in a discussion page. See WP:TPO. Sjrct (talk) 17:21, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I hereby issue my reliable source challenge: please provide at most three reliable sources that deal with the subject in detail and establish its notability, going by Wikipedia's definition of the terms "reliable sources" and "notability". If you fail to do so, I will consider the subject is not notable and accordingly !vote to delete. Tigraan Click here to contact me 11:59, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * We have provided dozens of sources from both historical and modern sources--including from "fathers" of their respective earth science disciplines. From recent years to the present you have: the deep earth seismology work of Dr. Stephen Jacobsen at Northwestern and his global team members; the deep earth mineralogy led by Dr. Graham Pearson at the University of Alberta; and the planetary astro-biology work of Dr. Lydia Hallis at the University of Hawaii/NASA and their international team. Not enough? Check with the Kepler in Austria, various institutions in St. Petersburg, multiple in Japan and China... Why not check your own article on Mantle plumes which states that such a concept of deep earth water vapor (H2O in gaseous rather than aqueous form) did not fit in with the plate tectonics of a few decades. Yes, plate tectonics...that highly controversial subject since geologists first discovered the Americas connected with Europe-Africa--but even later finding it difficult to accept the data that Australia and China were connected to North America as well. Given the vast over-specialization in science, often producing more and more meaninglessness, we understand how it is difficult to respect the great effort needed to comprehend concepts of a multi-disciplinary nature such as how minerals are created--including that really important one we simply call "water". Just because modern hydrology remains frozen in time, more a sub-discipline of civil engineer (i.e., long-distance plumbing), this state of affairs has not prevented others from leading: geo-physicists (see Wendy Mao at Stanford proving the Earth's core was created in layers through seepage from inside out); mineralogists from Van Hise, Clarke and Spurr to Pearson and Mao; a range of geo-chemists and planetary astro-biologists; seismologists leveraging the advances in computer science and mathematics; the list goes on! Primary water (and thus Geo-hydrology) is not a theoretical but rather an APPLIED science. The results speak for themselves, thus the section on History reviewing the work of Nordenskiold, Riess, Cameron and Cox who could receive much longer attention.
 * I wrote "at most three", in bold, on purpose. The point is to have less references to go through (details of my personal views on the subject: User:Tigraan/Reliable sources challenge). You seem to be expecting editors here to take a week-long undertaking diving through all that material. It will not happen. That is the point where countless others complained that Wikipedia is run by idiots who dismiss experts, so, pre-emptive strike: we are not evaluating the scientific merits of a theory, we are evaluating the notability of a topic for inclusion in an encyclopedia of human knowledge. Basically all scientific topics, from penguin migration to the Riemann hypothesis, require the same skill set in that regard.
 * So, please quote at most three papers / books / articles, the best in terms of WP:RS and WP:SIGCOV, with enough detail that one can find the them online or in the correct library (not just "the 12th paper by XXX"). The understanding, of course, is that if those few were found to be completely insufficient, then editors will !vote to delete with a clear conscience.
 * Of course, you are under no obligation whatsoever to locate those resources, or even to reply to my post, but I guarantee doing so would advance your case a lot more than any amount of discussion of the topic itself. Tigraan Click here to contact me 17:53, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * www.dmg-home.org/fileadmin/Konferenzen/Geoberlin_2015.pdf

(2015) = "elevated primary water content"(p. 214) "Shallow magmatism during subduction-zone initiation: Constraints from the Oman ophiolite and related experiments Juergen Koepke1, Sandrin Feig1 , Paul Eric Wolff2 (1) University of Hannover, Hannover, Germany; (2) University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia koepke@mineralogie.uni-hannover.de Oral in Session A1-03 The Semail Ophiolite in the Sultanate Oman was formed during the initiation of a subduction zone in the Cretaceous and is characterized by two different magmatic phases: The first shows typical MOR-type character with a small subduction zone component (extrusives composition similar to modern MORB, but with slight Nb-Ta anomaly and elevated primary water content), the second magmatic phase is completely different..." No surprise the authors are German and Australian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BurrME64 (talk • contribs) 19:32, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70015237

(1987) = both "primary water" and "primary isotopic signatures", in this case by American authors in 1987 (Dobson is now at Berkeley-Livermore so I don't think his publications have been deleted...): Abstract: Measurements of stable isotope compositions and water contents of boninite series volcanic rocks from the island of Chichi-jima, Bonin Islands, Japan, confirm that a large amount (1.6-2.4 wt.%) of primary water was present in these unusual magmas. An enrichment of 0.6??? in 18O during differentiation is explained by crystallization of 18O-depleted mafic phases. Silicic glasses have elevated ??18O values and relatively low ??D values indicating that they were modified by low-temperature alteration and hydration processes. Mafic glasses, on the other hand, have for the most part retained their primary isotopic signatures since Eocene time. Primary ??D values of -53 for boninite glasses are higher than those of MORB and suggest that the water was derived from subducted oceanic lithosphere. ?? 1987.
 * https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#sent/157d424016a2a0db

(2013) Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volumes 369–370, Pages 1-344 (May 2013): pp. 317-332. Water in volcanic pyroclast: Rehydration or incomplete degassing? by T. Giachetti, H.M. Gonnermann (yes, an Italian and a German in honor of Arduino and Werner) Abstract: "The matrix-glass water concentrations in samples from volcanic eruptions of intermediate to highly silicic magmas were measured and compiled. They range from 0.1 wt% to more than 3.5 wt% and show a positive correlation with vesicles surface area over glass volume ratio. Modeling of water diffusion suggests that most of this correlation can be explained by the post-eruptive diffusion of external water at atmospheric temperature and pressure into the matrix-glass, a process referred to as rehydration. Although the precise proportion of primary (magmatic) to secondary (meteoric) water is not determined by our analysis, we find that most samples can be modeled by progressive rehydration of an initially ‘dry’ sample during the time interval between deposition and sample collection at an average rehydration diffusivity of approximately 10−23 m2 s−1. This diffusivity estimate is consistent with values provided in the literature on obsidian hydration dating and with the extrapolation of diffusivity formulations for silicic melts to lower temperatures and pressures."
 * The three sources provided use the term "primary water", universally in the sense of magmatic water. They do absolutely nothing to support the fundamental claims of the article under discussion here (that "primary water" is a significant contributor to the hydrological cycle, or that significant sources of "primary water" can be made available via drilling; to say nothing of the article's willingness to take concepts like dowsing and abiogenic oil seriously). More specifically, the first source—Koepke, Feig, and Wolff (2015)—was a paper presented orally at the 2015 conference of the Deutsche Geologische Gesellschaft - Geologische Vereinigung. To the best of my ability to determine, it has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal and is not a suitable reference under Wikipedia policies (the pdf linked above is a publication of the conference's abstracts only). Its use of the term is trivial, and entirely compatible with our article on magmatic water. The other two sources are both published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters. The latter is, by far, the source that uses the term "primary water" in the least-trivial manner; it is available in full via ResearchGate. However, it also does nothing to support the claims of the article under discussion here, which remains a novel synthesis of sources in support of a fringe theory without sufficient coverage in reliable sources to meet our inclusion standards. The sources are, however, sufficient that I would support a redirect to magmatic water (which, in light of this wall-of-text-themed AFD, will probably require protection), as the phrase is a plausible search term. I've amended my !vote above accordingly. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:16, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Good to see you are becoming educated in the subject. Magmatic water, as we indicate in the Terminology section, is one of many terms for "deep Earth water": primordial, proto-nebular, juvenile, pre-biotic, Hadean...ALL can be considered as subcategories of Primary Water. (Have you read how Primary Minerals are derived from Primary Rock? Water is a mineral--and crystalline in one of its solid forms found in many primary minerals.) Read the intro to Magmatic water again: it unquestionably enters the atmosphere via volcanic vapor, hydrothermal vents (that is liquid water!) and by the many sources of water found near volcanic formations (where coincidentally much of the purest bottled water is sourced from).  We have isotope geochemists working on a review of the article as the geophysicists, seismologists and volcanologists are all pointing in that relation--while in total disbelief that this article is being rejected by Wikipedia of all things. Your profile claims Malthusianism which no doubt means you must be horrified by reference to Peak Oil being dead and buried and with Peak Water the next straw man to fall. Global Warming was certainly "fringe" and debunked so fast they changed it to Climate Change--and yet it survived on Wiki! No further responses will be made to Squeamish Ossifrage.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by BurrME64 (talk • contribs) 23:15, 18 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete - there is no shred of either notability or veracity here. This is mumbo-jumbo at its best. Trying to overwhelm with acres of spurious "references" does not make for notability.  Velella  Velella Talk 23:21, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Redirect to magmatic water per Squeamish Ossifrage above. I entirely subscribe to their analysis of the papers at hand. Not sure whether the article history is worth nuking, or the redirect protecting. Tigraan Click here to contact me 10:55, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Links have been made to Magmatic water and all other related topics--none of which covers this topic adequately. This article is absolutely Notable and fully Referenced. Wikipedia is full of "fringe" topics that anonymous reviewers deem mainstream. We have met all the criteria established by Wikipedia. The prejudices of the reviewers on the topic is immaterial. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.161.76.127 (talk) 14:31, 20 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete This is a fringe topic, but that's fine, we have many articles on those as was said right above me. Where this runs afoul of policy is that many of the sources cited support a small fact in the text, but little in the way of reliable sources support combining those facts to back up the desired claim. Thus we have synthesis at work. Again as mentioned above there is little in the way of reliable sourcing to cover the concept from soda to hock in the kind of detail we need. This article gives the appearance of being the paper submitted to scientific journals which puts all the facts together to prove the conclusion. Unfortunately that's cart-before-the-horse here. Crow  Caw  22:13, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
 * None of those calling for deletion have indicated any specific instances of the article directly contradicting the core Wikipedia policies: Neutral point of view, Verifiability, No original research, or the copyright policy. Because it is a "new topic" to the reviewers does not make it fringe or not Notable. The red herring of Dowsing (certainly related to pinpoint locating non-aquifer groundwater sources) was included at the end of the article which was quickly used as evidence by one reviewer as evidence of unacceptability of the whole article--AND YET WIKIPEDIA HAS AN ARTICLE ON DOWSING! — Preceding unsigned comment added by BurrME64 (talk • contribs) 00:01, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I thought I had made that clear. The article relies on synthesis to put all the facts together to prove the concept, thus running afoul of No Original Research. I wasn't going to bring up Dowsing, but since you did: our article on dowsing gives an encyclopedic treatment of it, its history and so on, with primary emphasis on the mainstream scientific viewpoint that is it pseudoscience and indistinguishable from random chance. The Primary Water article discusses the "science of dowsing". I hope the distinction is obvious. Crow  Caw  20:31, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Your welcome &#124; Democratics Talk 09:38, 21 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete leaving redirect to magmatic water. Magmatic water is a genuine geological feature (and is a properly cited article); "Primary water" is a WP:FRINGE version, with all differences from the other article being pseudoscience. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:04, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Mate...not all water of internal origin comes from magmatic/volcanic sources; check your British sources, such as: "British Dictionary definitions for hydrothermal": hydrothermal /ˌhaɪdrəʊˈθɜːməl/ [the term dates to 1855 in geology] adjective 1. of or relating to the action of water under conditions of high temperature, esp in forming rocks and minerals Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012. The word "water" sadly conjures up H2O in an aqueous form; but much of deep terrestrial/telluric water (here and on the moon and many other planetary bodies) is in a crystalline form which transmutes to gas (water vapor) or liquid based on the massive pressures and temperatures combined with the electromechanical (our geo-dynamo plus tectonic action) forces of the earth. Water released from metamorphic rocks contains both primary water and atmospheric water captured from previous eons--hence the confusing results of isotope studies if the scientists do not understand the types and ages of rocks. A rudimentary chart is added for your edification: (See chart at:) "File:Geo-hydrologic_chart.jpg. It was stated that because we mentioned "abiotic/abiogenic" we are also therefore fringe...even though Wikipedia contains an article on abiogenesis that evaded such assault. And the article on Abiogenic petroleum origin has clearly moved from "fringe" to mainstream with its discussion, in the introductory section, of the recent work of the RIT/KTH in Stockholm (where the Russian scientist Vladimir Kutcherov is highly influential in this area). — Preceding unsigned comment added by BurrME64 (talk • contribs) 22:31, 24 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Radically condense and NPOVize; otherwise, delete. As noted repeatedly above, the topic may well be notable (indeed I'd say it is) even though it is fringe - widespread and well-documented fringe is worth an article. However, the current treatment is an absurdly biased, bloated exercise in WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. I wonder if anyone will be masochistic enough to jump in there and cut it down to something that a neutral encyclopedia could countenance, in the face of the expected resistance from the proponents. If not, this has to go, as it is an entirely misleading minority diatribe right now.-- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 11:32, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * It seems Sjrct has undertaken the "masochistic" exercise to review the article for NPOV, copyright etc. Why don't you dig deep and take a stab so the header can be removed and you folks can move on to other planet-saving article reviews?BurrME64 (talk) 14:22, 2 November 2016 (UTC)BurrME64


 * Keep; anyone is free to add a section for Dissenting Views etc. The article is Notable, Verifiable, has No Original Research (but is clearly a scary topic to typical scaremongers and establishment science types and their Wiki-drones). The article could have been titled "New water" to use Salzman's term but even he deferred to Riess--a German-trained geochemist and metallurgist who located over 800 PW wells, many of which still pour forth potable water unaffected by drought--who directly related its provenance to Primary Rock just as the Primary Minerals are. Primary Minerals is a fully established concept that has survived from the 1800s; Primary Rock is a concept any geologist would understand, largely replaced by a wide range of more specific terms. That primary rocks (magmatic, igneous, volcanic, some metamorphic) contain water is a given: Gorenson in, yes, 1931 demonstrated that granite subjected to pressure and temperature equivalent to a depth of 9 miles...contains 9% water. Refer to the Wikipedia article on the Kola Superdeep Borehole that almost reached those depths: "To scientists, one of the more fascinating findings to emerge from this well is that no transition from granite to basalt was found at the depth of about 7 km, where the velocity of seismic waves has a discontinuity [aka the Moho, discovered way back in 1909]. Instead the change in the seismic wave velocity is caused by a metamorphic transition in the granite rock. In addition, the rock at that depth had been thoroughly fractured and was saturated with water, which was surprising. This water, unlike surface water, must have come from deep-crust minerals and had been unable to reach the surface because of a layer of impermeable rock." That this water is released from the rock and added to the atmospheric cycle upon reaching the surface, via the centrifugal forces of a planet spinning over 1000 mph at the equator (thus creating the equatorial bulge) has long been theorized by many of the most renowned scientists since the 1700s--and is now fully proven by applied scientists. For this reason the article had to go to great historical lengths to demonstrate why such a simple concept remains undiscovered by hydrology (supposedly the study of water) and hydrogeology (the study of water as relates to rock) but not neglected by many other earth sciences who literally carried their water for them. And the role the vicious politics of water played in delaying this scientific inquiry is also needed--if none other than to confront the Wiki-Doubting Thomases. Read Ackerman's speech to the AGU in 1961; the same speech could be given today. This time he would point to the many years of dedicated, multi-disciplinary, scientific, field and laboratory work of Jacobsen (USA), Pearson (Canada), Nestola (Italy), Ye (China) and quite a few others--none of them from hydrology or hydrogeology but rather seismology, mineralogy, geochemistry, crystallography etc. We leave you with this reference and a graphic that will soon be in textbooks: "Diamonds and water in the deep Earth: A new scenario" in International Geology Review 58(3):1-14, June 2015. See graphic at: "File:Water in Earth - Jug.jpg". This topic may have been "fringe" a century ago; but as of 2014 it is mainstream. You folks need to come down from your Ivory Wiki-Tower!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by BurrME64 (talk • contribs) 04:09, 22 October 2016 (UTC)  Ambox warning pn.svg — Duplicate vote: BurrME64 (talk • contribs)  has already cast a vote above.
 * Thanks for joining us, but we do work to some basic rules. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:42, 22 October 2016 (UTC)


 * et al.: this will be my last answer in that AfD for what should be obvious reasons. You do not seem to have read profitably the numerous Wikipedia policies that were pointed to you, so I will keep it short. We are not here to discuss primary water, but the inclusion of a certain page in Wikipedia. Claiming the subject is notable does not make it so (you barely tried to get higher than the 4th level of File:Graham's_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement-en.svg). Saying Wikipedia's "reviewers" are somehow all incompetent at recognizing a notable topic is preposterous. More generally, insulting others generally weakens your case (that last advice is valid outside Wikipedia). Tigraan Click here to contact me 15:14, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for exiting the discussion. "Elmidae" states that indeed it is Notable--and is free to engage in the "masochistic" exercise of NPOV'ing the article to conform to your standards (which from what we see includes "Wikipedia has no firm rules"...) and the following statement: "A well-written encyclopedia article identifies a notable encyclopedic topic, summarizes that topic comprehensively, contains references to reliable sources, and links to other related topics." We have done so from our first draft. The major objection is that this article presents a supposedly "fringe" topic as claimed by anonymous reviewers whose prejudices (Malthusians, Catastrophists, etc) militate against something counter to their worldview. Global Warming is not fringe because, well, arguing a priori, the data proves it...until it doesn't. Then Climate Change emerges as a revealed religion, but is also not a fringe topic denied an article...until it isn't (sooner than later?). Please sip a naturally carbonated (CO2 resulting from the outgassing of the Earth) Perrier and read about the father of modern chemistry Lavoisier, in your case in the original, and his experiments on water in the 18th century and then return to Palissy in the 16th century and his Discours admirable... These great Frenchmen are of course pre-Revolutionary, after which little of scientific note has come from Gaul--and currently the greatest scientific and entrepreneurial French minds, thanks to the stranglehold of your beloved Institut and its Académie, are here...in Silicon Valley.  Bon chance!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by BurrME64 (talk • contribs) 16:38, 22 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep. This article is actually quite informative and certainly exhaustive on the concept. The references are of a high quality and with a few exceptions (which users are free to edit) presents a neutral point of view. This can only be seen as "fringe" by those for whom the concept is either new or counter to their prejudices. It seems rather obvious from the literature of many scientific disciplines that the Earth produces water which is added to the atmospheric hydrologic system. Oceanographers alone are proving massive inflows of H2O from the mantle through the crust into the oceans, including via thousands of underwater volcanic hydrothermal vents. Isotope chemistry is now differentiating between types and even ages of water. I will end by saying this entry will hopefully affect many other related articles to address this clearly notable topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.57.246.193 (talk) 00:10, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Magmatic water. Most of the article is very biased, violating the WP:NPOV requirement; presenting a fringe idea as if it was fact. It presents discredited ideas also as part of this topic in a non-neutral misleading way. And most of the content is presented as original research, not referenced to anything to say that this is part of the topic, instead relying on unconnected sources. I don't think that the content is excessively harmful that it must be deleted, but a redirect should be the way to go, and this content should not be recreated here. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:19, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
 * So is the extensive body of work by Jacobsen, Pearson, Nestola et al. "fringe"? The only reason the article below highlights "a new scenario" is because this group would like to receive their Nobel Prize when such concepts were theorized and proven decades ago. Scientific posturing is nothing new--and their entire body of work has certainly now mainstreamed "competing theories of a century ago" so that this topic can no longer be considered fringe except by the bankrupt and rather indifferent disciplines of hydrology and geology. The following Water in Earth "jug graphic" is from this peer-reviewed study: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281161532_Diamonds_and_water_in_the_deep_Earth_A_new_scenario?_sg=BcbjNCok3kUO5Nh_uZL-KbKY0UXyxZxJB-IPYtantM5eU3oKH6k6OYcqIaKEbwM0VxBVCxF8gW4yBIdbZLDXow

See graphic at: "File:Water in Earth - Jug.jpg"
 * Keep but clarify that this is a fringe view. Primary water, as propounded by Reiss' theory, differs from the magmatic water of mainstram hydrology by being very low in TDS. As does nearly every other hydrogeologist, I regard this theory as nonsense. I have read Salzman's book, and as someone familiar with groundwater, I found it entirely unconvincing. Nevertheless, fringe theories have a place in Wikipedia, but should be clearly labelled as fringe theories. The present article gives Riess' theory a free pass, and gives only Salzman's one-sided views. Salzman was not a groundwater scientist, and neither were Reiss or Aldous Huxley. The Swedish/Finnish engineer who coined the term primary water used it for water occurring in primary rocks, and made no claims as to its origin. A properly written article on the subject should be included in Wikipedia. Plazak (talk) 13:27, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Naturally a geologist will prejudicially consider this topic fringe. Not one of the Jacobsen, Pearson, Nestola et al. global team is a geologist. Geology long ago abandoned the pursuit of the origin of water to geochemistry, mineralogy, crystallography, volcanology...and ultimately seismology and geophysics to prove it. Many of these used to be considered sub-disciplines of geology--but at least in academia have emerged as fully developed disciplines distancing themselves from the dogmatic stranglehold of American geology and disinterested hydrology which has become a sub-discipline of civil engineering and hydraulics. PW is not/not classified simply by its TDS. Rankama was able to define it by its heavier weight 60 years ago. Libby, then, and Hallis et al., now, are using hydrogen and oxygen ratios to determine pre-biotic Hadean waters, biotic Archean waters, newly released volcanic vapors and water etc. Mineralogists understand their is H2O in minerals and that it can be released by the electromechanical forces of the interior of the planet. Crystallographers are proving this in laboratories from the US to UK to Russia to Japan to New Zealand. There is no single term that covers all Earth generated water other than Primary Water as used by the "fathers of the earth sciences" over a century ago--thus the need to place it in the context of Primary Rock and Primary Minerals. The rest are sub-categories of PW: pre-biotic (abiotic/abiogenic!) Hadean, biotic Archean, juvenile of any age from magma/volcanics, metamorphic water... See chart at: "File:Geo-hydrologic_chart.jpg". It is a long and growing list! Clearly the emerging science of geo-hydrology (the study of the water of Earth origin) is the rightful place for both the theoretical and, even more so, the applied science of earth-generated water.BurrME64 (talk) 16:30, 24 October 2016 (UTC)BurrME64
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:18, 26 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep and do not Redirect to "Magmatic water". It should be noted that the article on magmatic water, which has been accepted without prejudice, includes the following statement in the introductory paragraph: "Ultimate sources of this magmatic water includes water and hydrous minerals in rocks melted during subduction as well as primordial water brought up from the deep mantle." Note that "primordial water" was italicized, but no link or reference provided. Primordial or proto-nebular H2O is the original source of PRIMARY water found in the anhydrous and hydrous minerals of the deep mantle which form the PRIMARY rocks and ultimately PRIMARY minerals of the crust. Magmatic water is a subcomponent of Primary water--which, we repeat, itself is a mineral when in solid form bound in crystals, as well as a gas (water vapor) released by volcanoes and outgassed like all other minerals towards the surface as a result of the massive centrifugal force of our spinning planet (over 1000 miles an hour at the equator, which bulges as a result). — Preceding unsigned comment added by BurrME64 (talk • contribs) 23:45, 28 October 2016 (UTC)  Ambox warning pn.svg — Duplicate vote: BurrME64 (talk • contribs)  has already cast a vote above.


 * Comment originally placed above the opening statement The Primary Water contribution is a valuable collection of hard to find references for a subject of great and increasing importance. While known under a variety of names over central centuries, the phenomenon is well established by qualified researchers and receives more and more collaboration by scientists studying the composition of the mantle and transition zone.  It helps explain how oceans first appeared on Earth and why all the great fresh water bodies in the world sit atop major rifts or fracture zones - and a host of other hydrological marvels like desert oases, volcanic lakes, the artesian wells in Australia's great basin and first magnitude springs found throughout the world.  I don't find any sensible reason to delete such cutting edge research.  I don't know how to terminate this post properly, so will just stop here.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.90.38.132 (talk) 05:50, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * weak redirect Frankly I don't see enough to meet WP:FRINGE and the discussions here are fairly convincing that this is a fringe theory.  Two of the three sources provided above seem to not really be on this topic, but instead on magnatic water.  Weak because I've not taken the time to do research myself beyond reading this discussion. Hobit (talk) 04:04, 6 November 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.