About the episode
We often talk about finding water on other planets, but new research shows we still don’t know everything about water on our own planet.
Bubbles containing water are trapped in many minerals and gemstones. Researchers have now succeeded in determining the composition of the smallest bubbles with water.
390 million years old are the water droplets, which must have been part of a huge ancient sea of salt water that stretched from Michigan in the US to Ontario in Canada. The sea had a coral reef that must have been as impressive as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and sea scorpions the size of a pick-up truck walked across the bottom.
The sea has disappeared due to a changing climate. Knowing exactly how it happened and how hot the water must have been during that time can help us even today. The fact that we were able to extract information from those tiny bubbles offers new opportunities for research into those climate changes, far in the past.
But understanding how those tiny droplets in the rock behave can help something. Namely when looking for ways to safely store hydrogen underground in the future.
Read more: Revealed the smallest seawater pockets ever.
