WOODS HOLE – Fresh water is extremely scarce in some parts of the world and as areas dry up scientists are searching for new sources – and they are finding it in a surprising place – below the ocean.
About 120,000 cubic miles of fresh water is estimated to lie beneath the ocean floor, more than the sun evaporates from the surface of the plant in a year.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientists Rob Evans and Dan Lizarralde say these under-ocean pools could someday be tapped like wells to provide additional fresh water.
Evans and Lizarralde have been investigating what they believe could be large areas of fresh water off Martha’s Vineyard under the shallow continental shelf.
Scientists are not sure how the fresh water got below the seafloor.
One theory is the water may be infiltrating all the way down through the shelf from land aquifers.
Another theory suggests the water came from glaciers during the ice ages, when sea levels were lower and the continental shelf was land. As the glaciers melted, the water may have been trapped beneath the seafloor when sea levels rose.
WHOI scientists are working on a proposal to drill for water samples hundreds of feet below the shelf off the Vineyard to prove freshwater is there and to determine the source.
The drilling would be expensive with an estimated $4 million price tag.
Fresh water is dangerously scarce in some parts of the world and as areas dry up scientists are searching for new sources – and they are finding it in a surprising place – below the ocean.
About 120,000 cubic miles of fresh water is estimated to lie beneath the ocean floor, more than the sun evaporates from the surface of the plant in a year.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientists Rob Evans and Dan Lizarralde say these under-ocean pools could someday be tapped like wells to provide additional fresh water.
Evans and Lizarralde have been investigating what they believe could be large areas of fresh water off Martha’s Vineyard under the shallow continental shelf.
Scientists are not sure how the fresh water got below the seafloor.
One theory is the water may be infiltrating all the way down through the shelf from land aquifers.
Another theory suggests the water came from glaciers during the ice ages, when sea levels were lower and the continental shelf was land. As the glaciers melted, the water may have been trapped beneath the seafloor when sea levels rose.
WHOI scientists are working on a proposal to drill for water samples hundreds of feet below the shelf off the Vineyard to prove freshwater is there and to determine the source.
The drilling would be expensive with an estimated $4 million price tag.
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