Moon has a water-rich interior

A new study of satellite data finds that numerous volcanic deposits distributed across the surface of the Moon contain unusually high amounts of trapped water compared with surrounding terrains. The finding of water in these ancient deposits, which are believed to consist of glass beads formed by the explosive eruption of magma coming from the deep lunar interior, bolsters the idea that the lunar mantle is surprisingly water-rich.

Scientists had assumed for years that the interior of the Moon had been largely depleted of water and other volatile compounds. That began to change in 2008, when a research team including Brown University geologist Alberto Saal detected trace amounts of water in some of the volcanic glass beads brought back to Earth from the Apollo 15 and 17 missions to the Moon. In 2011, further study of tiny crystalline formations within those beads revealed that they actually contain similar amounts of water as some basalts on Earth. That suggests that the Moon's mantle - parts of it, at least - contain as much water as Earth's.

"The key question is whether those Apollo samples represent the bulk conditions of the lunar interior or instead represent unusual or perhaps anomalous water-rich regions within an otherwise 'dry' mantle," said Ralph Milliken, lead author of the new research and an associate professor in Brown's Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences. "By looking at the orbital data, we can examine the large pyroclastic deposits on the Moon that were never sampled by the Apollo or Luna missions. The fact that nearly all of them exhibit signatures of water suggests that the Apollo samples are not anomalous, so it may be that the bulk interior of the Moon is wet."

Full Moon photograph taken 10-22-2010 from Madison, Alabama, USA. By Gregory H. Revera (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

The research, which Milliken co-authored with Shuai Li, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hawaii and a recent Brown Ph.D. graduate, is published in Nature Geoscience.

Detecting the water content of lunar volcanic deposits using orbital instruments is no easy task. Scientists use orbital spectrometers to measure the light that bounces off a planetary surface. By looking at which wavelengths of light are absorbed or reflected by the surface, scientists can get an idea of which minerals and other compounds are present.

The problem is that the lunar surface heats up over the course of a day, especially at the latitudes where these pyroclastic deposits are located. That means that in addition to the light reflected from the surface, the spectrometer also ends up measuring heat.

"That thermally emitted radiation happens at the same wavelengths that we need to use to look for water," Milliken said. "So in order to say with any confidence that water is present, we first need to account for and remove the thermally emitted component."

To do that, Li and Milliken used laboratory-based measurements of samples returned from the Apollo missions, combined with a detailed temperature profile of the areas of interest on the Moon's surface. Using the new thermal correction, the researchers looked at data from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper, an imaging spectrometer that flew aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter.

The researchers found evidence of water in nearly all of the large pyroclastic deposits that had been previously mapped across the Moon's surface, including deposits near the Apollo 15 and 17 landing sites where the water-bearing glass bead samples were collected.

"The distribution of these water-rich deposits is the key thing," Milliken said. "They're spread across the surface, which tells us that the water found in the Apollo samples isn't a one-off. Lunar pyroclastics seem to be universally water-rich, which suggests the same may be true of the mantle."

The idea that the interior of the Moon is water-rich raises interesting questions about the Moon's formation. Scientists think the Moon formed from debris left behind after an object about the size of Mars slammed into the Earth very early in solar system history. One of the reasons scientists had assumed the Moon's interior should be dry is that it seems unlikely that any of the hydrogen needed to form water could have survived the heat of that impact.

"The growing evidence for water inside the Moon suggest that water did somehow survive, or that it was brought in shortly after the impact by asteroids or comets before the Moon had completely solidified," Li said. "The exact origin of water in the lunar interior is still a big question."

In addition to shedding light on the water story in the early solar system, the research could also have implications for future lunar exploration. The volcanic beads don't contain a lot of water - about .05 percent by weight, the researchers say - but the deposits are large, and the water could potentially be extracted.

"Other studies have suggested the presence of water ice in shadowed regions at the lunar poles, but the pyroclastic deposits are at locations that may be easier to access," Li said. "Anything that helps save future lunar explorers from having to bring lots of water from home is a big step forward, and our results suggest a new alternative."

The research was funded by the NASA Lunar Advanced Science and Exploration Research Program (NNX12AO63G).

For more information visit:-

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170724114125.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon

http://www.prlabs.co.uk/lab-supplies.php?N=nuclease-free-water&Id=62712

On this day in science history: the world's tallest geyser was discovered

In 1901, the world's tallest geyser was discovered by Dr Humphrey Haines on the North Island of New Zealand. He was following up reports of great clouds of steam, and found the Waimangu Geyser near Rotorua. It appeared after an enormous eruption of Mt. Tarawera in 1886. The Waimangu Geyser was the largest geyser in the world and erupted on a 36 hour cycle for four years, hurling black mud and rocks in the air. Waimangu is Maori for "black water." It stopped in 1904 when a landslide changed the local water table. Eruptions would typically reach 600 feet. Some superbursts are known to have reached 1,600 feet (10 times as high as Yellowstone's famous Old Faithful, and which would be higher than the Empire State Building.)

Geyser activity, like all hot spring activity, is caused by surface water gradually seeping down through the ground until it meets rock heated by magma. The geothermally heated water then rises back toward the surface by convection through porous and fractured rocks. Geysers differ from non-eruptive hot springs in their subterranean structure; many consist of a small vent at the surface connected to one or more narrow tubes that lead to underground reservoirs of water and pressure tight rock.

Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone. By Brocken Inaglory (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

As the geyser fills, the water at the top of the column cools off, but because of the narrowness of the channel, convective cooling of the water in the reservoir is impossible. The cooler water above presses down on the hotter water beneath, not unlike the lid of a pressure cooker, allowing the water in the reservoir to become superheated, i.e. to remain liquid at temperatures well above the standard-pressure boiling point.

Ultimately, the temperatures near the bottom of the geyser rise to a point where boiling begins which forces steam bubbles to rise to the top of the column. As they burst through the geyser's vent, some water overflows or splashes out, reducing the weight of the column and thus the pressure on the water below. With this release of pressure, the superheated water flashes into steam, boiling violently throughout the column. The resulting froth of expanding steam and hot water then sprays out of the geyser vent.

A key requirement that enables a geyser to erupt is a material called geyserite found in rocks nearby the geyser. Geyserite—mostly silicon dioxide (SiO2), is dissolved from the rocks and gets deposited on the walls of the geyser's plumbing system and on the surface. The deposits make the channels carrying the water up to the surface pressure-tight. This allows the pressure to be carried all the way to the top and not be leaked out into the loose gravel or soil that are normally under the geyser fields.

Eventually the water remaining in the geyser cools back to below the boiling point and the eruption ends; heated groundwater begins seeping back into the reservoir, and the whole cycle begins again. The duration of eruptions and time between successive eruptions vary greatly from geyser to geyser; Strokkur in Iceland erupts for a few seconds every few minutes, while Grand Geyser in the United States erupts for up to 10 minutes every 8–12 hours.

For more information visit:-

https://todayinsci.com/1/1_30.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geyser

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Diamonds may not be so rare as once thought

Diamonds may not be as rare as once believed, but this finding in a new Johns Hopkins University research report won't mean deep discounts at local jewellery stores.

"Diamond formation in the deep Earth, the very deep Earth, may be a more common process than we thought," said Johns Hopkins geochemist Dimitri A. Sverjensky, whose article co-written with doctoral student Fang Huang appears today in the online journal Nature Communications. The report says the results 'constitute a new quantitative theory of diamond formation,' but that does not mean it will be easier to find gem-quality diamonds and bring them to market.

"Rough diamond" by Unknown USGS employee - Original source: USGS "Minerals in Your World" website. 

For one thing, the prevalence of diamonds near the Earth's surface - where they can be mined - still depends on relatively rare volcanic magma eruptions that raise them from the depths where they form. For another, the diamonds being considered in these studies are not necessarily the stuff of engagement rings, unless the recipient is equipped with a microscope. Most are only a few microns across and are not visible to the unaided eye.

Using a chemical model, Sverjensky and Huang found that these precious stones could be born in a natural chemical reaction that is simpler than the two main processes that up to now have been understood to produce diamonds. Specifically, their model - yet to be tested with actual materials - shows that diamonds can form with an increase in acidity during interaction between water and rock.

The common understanding up to now has been that diamonds are formed in the movement of fluid by the oxidation of methane or the chemical reduction of carbon dioxide. Oxidation results in a higher oxidation state, or a gain of electrons. Reduction means a lower oxidation state, and collectively the two are known as 'redox' reactions.

"It was always hard to explain why the redox reactions took place," said Sverjensky, a professor in the Morton K. Blaustein Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the university's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. The reactions require different types of fluids to be moving through the rocks encountering environments with different oxidation states.

The new research showed that water could produce diamonds as its pH falls naturally - that is, as it becomes more acidic - while moving from one type of rock to another, Sverjensky said.

The finding is one of many in about the last 25 years that expands scientists' understanding of how pervasive diamonds may be, Sverjensky said.

"The more people look, the more they're finding diamonds in different rock types now," Sverjensky said. "I think everybody would agree there's more and more environments of diamond formation being discovered."

Nobody has yet put a number on the greater abundance of diamonds, but Sverjensky said scientists are working on that with chemical models. It's impossible to physically explore the great depths at which diamonds are created: roughly 90 to 120 miles below the Earth's surface at intense pressure and at temperatures about 1,650 to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The deepest drilling exploration ever made was about 8 or 9 miles below the surface, he said.

If the study doesn't shake the diamond markets, it promises to help shed light on fluid movement in the deep Earth, which helps account for the carbon cycle on which all life on the planet depends.

"Fluids are the key link between the shallow and the deep Earth," Sverjensky said. "That's why it's important."

This research was supported by grants from the Sloan Foundation through the Deep Carbon Observatory (Reservoirs and Fluxes and Extreme Physics and Chemistry programs) and by a U.S. Energy Department grant, DE-FG-02-96ER-14616.

For more information visit:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151103140444.htm

https://www.prlabs.co.uk/lab-supplies.php?N=bisdiphenylphosphino-methane-for-sy&Id=38134