Burgy,
There may indeed be a lot of water in the transition zone of
the earth's mantle (400-700 km depth), since the main minerals there
(beta and gamma olivine) can hold a lot of water. At this point
the issue is not well resolved. At shallower depths the
low pressure form of olivine (alpha olivine) cannot hold much
water, so the issue is whether water can be transfered between
the surface water cycle and the transition zone. It is thought that
water could be carried down to these depths by subduction zones,
either in the form of hydrous mineral phases or high pressure forms
of ice (see Science, v 408, pg 844, 2000). Incidently the author
of that paper told me that
he tried to title his paper "Can hell freeze over?"
but it was deemed too unscientific by the Science editors!
As far as I know this issue has not been picked up on by YECs. Of
course, the water from a 10,000 yr old flood would have only descended
1 km at current subduction rates, but plate tectonic rates have
never been a big limitation on YEC scenarios!
Doug Wiens
Dept. Earth and Planetary Sciences
Washington University in St. Louis
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 16:23:02 -0600
From: "JW Burgeson" <hoss_radbourne@hotmail.com>
Subject: [none]
I note in a recent Science News that there is (may be?) a volume of water
within the earth equal to many times the current volume of all the oceans.
Have our YEC friends picked up on this yet? It does provide a possible
(superficial, I think) answer to the question "where did all Noah's fllod
water go?"
Burgy
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