U OF T STUDENTS DISCOVER TWO BILLION-YEAR-OLD WATER

THE OLDEST WATER EVER DISCOVERED

A team of geoscientists from the University of Toronto have discovered what is believed to be the oldest water on record ever found. In an active copper, zinc, and silver mine mine in Timmins, Ontario, the team drilled down to find water that is two billion years old.

The discovery follows a similar one that took place in 2013, according to the CBC, where they drilled 2.4 kilometers into the earth, finding water over a billion years old. This time they continued to dig deeper.

“Everything about the water is brand new. We are seeing signals in all isotopes that we’ve identified so far that we’ve never seen anywhere else,” says Postdoctoral researcher and leader of the expedition Oliver Warr.

 

The researchers are hoping samples of the water can tell them more about our planet at the time.

“If water has been down there for up to two billion years, it can tell us something about the atmosphere at the time, or the state of the Earth, which previously we’ve not been able to get much insight into,” Warr told CBC.

While the water is about eight times saltier than seawater and contains traces of metal, it wouldn’t kill you Warr says, “but it would taste absolutely disgusting.”

(Courtesy CBC News)