Most Of The Water On Earth Is Found In ??
Indeed, water is very abundant there: it covers roughly 70% of the Earth’s surface and is distributed between oceans, glaciers, rivers, groundwater, clouds. But, a question arises: do we know how the water appeared?
Today we propose to address this question by presenting the different theories that explain the presence of water on earth.
The appearance of water on Earth
It is through the analysis of very old rocks that scientists believe that water has been present on Earth for about 4 billion years (remember that our planet was born, according to estimates, 4.5 billion years ago). ‘years).
Several hypotheses are advanced by geologists and astronomers to explain its origin. But among them, two theories seem to have more credit (i.e. more scientists have agreed).
Thus, some argue that this water would come from Space when the Earth was still bombarded by comets and asteroids loaded with water in the form of ice.
But other research leads to another theory. Its origin is said to be linked to deep rocks in the earth’s crust, where minerals contain water in their chemical structure. When volcanoes activate, rocks are molten (they soften). At the time of the eruption, the water is evacuated in the form of water vapor.
Thus, over time, water vapor accumulates on the surface of the earth and in large quantities. Given the weather conditions (colder temperature), the water becomes liquid again and forms clouds which, by growing and accumulating drops, end up triggering the rain.
Torrential rains, therefore, swept over Earth for a very long time (millions of years), which ended up forming the oceans.
The only thing is: these two theories do not agree. The dating of the appearance of the water on Earth to which they lead is not in agreement. In fact, reality may well be a mixture of these two theories, that is to say, that part of the water would come from an external source (comets, asteroids …) and another part from internal sources. (volcanism).
But the scientific approach consists of always questioning the results by confronting them with new analyzes. And maybe tomorrow we will have new answers.
And after that?
Well, once the water is present, life appears. Thus, the first living organisms (bacteria) appeared sometime after the appearance of water on Earth (we talked about it HERE and very recently HERE ).
Given the position of the Earth in relation to the sun (neither too far nor too close), water is found therein its 3 states and follows a whole cycle which makes it take a sacred trip. Many phenomena participate in this cycle, we will tell you about them next time.
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