In the shallow aquifers you would expect young water, perhaps 50-100 years old, because its coming down as rain and flowing out towards the Nile Valley, said Sturchio. But in some of these aquifers, Mahmoud found water thats apparently 200,000 years old.
How do you determine the age of water?
These isotopes are adsorbed by rainfall and can enter the aquifer with recharge. Argon-39 can be used to identify water that recharged between 50 and 1,000 years ago. Carbon-14 or radiocarbon is the most common method used to determine groundwater ages between 1,000 and 30,000 years.
Is water older than the sun?
Around 70 percent of the Earths surface is comprised of water, and our big, blue, planet is filled with rivers, streams, and oceans that defy everything scientists have come to learn about the formation of Earth.
Does water have an age?
Four years ago a short article about the age of the water we drink every day probably comes closest to dating the age of water. Bharath Keshav wrote, “A fascinating new study suggests that some of the water molecules we drink and bathe in are [very] old, as in more than 4.6 billion years old.
Does anything live in groundwater?
Stygofauna are any fauna that live in groundwater systems or aquifers, such as caves, fissures and vugs. Stygofauna can live within freshwater aquifers and within the pore spaces of limestone, calcrete or laterite, whilst larger animals can be found in cave waters and wells.
Who is older sun or Earth?
One grain is more than 3 billion years older than the Sun, which, at more than 7 billion years, makes it the oldest solid material on Earth.
Which is older sun or water?
As much as half of the water in Earths oceans could be older than the Sun, a study has found. When a star first lights up, it heats up the cloud around it and floods it with radiation, vaporizing the ice and breaking up some of the water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen.
Where is Earths water found?
Earths water is (almost) everywhere: above the Earth in the air and clouds, on the surface of the Earth in rivers, oceans, ice, plants, in living organisms, and inside the Earth in the top few miles of the ground.