Oldest Ancient Water Found By Miners in Canadian Pool

• For comparison, it’s estimated that deep Pacific water is about 1,000 years old.

Did you know there as a place with the oldest ancient water? Because there is, and it’s in Canada.

For comparison, it’s estimated that deep Pacific water is about 1,000 years old. This is the same time it takes for deep ocean water to make it’s way around the world.

In 2018, mine researchers happened upon quite an ancient discovery. It ended up being the world’s oldest pool of water. This pond is the deepest basal metal mine in the world. They were searched for copper, silver, and zinc, taking them deeper into the Earth’s crust.

After finding the deep water underground, the liquid was analyzed to study how gases like helium and xenon can get trapped in water stuck in the rocks to determine how old it was.

Back in 2013, ancient water was first discovered and reportedly was about 1.5 billion years old. This water was at a depth of about 2.5 kilometers.

Then at the same site, three years later, it was scientists from the University of Toronto that found this water that was even older water and deeper. This oldest ancient water was more like 500 million years older than the water found in 2013.

The minors and scientists presented their research at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Leading the team who made the interesting ancient discovery was Barbara Sherwood Lollar.

Back in 2016, she told the BBC: “When people think about this water they assume it must be some tiny amount of water trapped within the rock.

“But in fact it’s very much bubbling right up out at you. These things are flowing at rates of litres per minute, the volume of the water is much larger than anyone anticipated.”

There were other discoveries made by researchers while mining the cave. The dig provided insight into the history of our planet and the type of organisms that could be found at the time, along with the oldest ancient water in the world.

There were also chemical traces left behind by single-celled organisms that once lived in the fluid.”By looking at the sulphate in the water, we were able to see a fingerprint that’s indicative of the presence of life.”

“And we were able to indicate that the signal we are seeing in the fluids has to have been produced by microbiology – and most importantly has to have been produced over a very long time scale.”

“This has to be an indication that organisms have been present in these fluids on a geological timescale,” Prof Sherwood Lollar said.

How cool to have found the oldest ancient water in the world. Way to go, Canada.