In 2016 , deep down within a Canadian mine research worker made an ancient discovery : the world ’s oldest pool of weewee . At a deepness of roughly 3 kilometers ( 1.8 sea mile ) , the water dates to an impressive 2 billion years former .
The discovery campaign back the date for the oldest acknowledge water supply by at least 500 million twelvemonth . The late record was retain by water encounter in the same mine by the same team back in 2013 , and came from a deepness of around 2.5 kilometer . The mine is in fact thedeepest basal alloy minein the world , as the search for bull , atomic number 30 , and silver is taking the mineworker deeper and deeper into the Earth ’s crust .
When the miners dug deeper , the researchers read the chance to search further into the mine . They analyzed the water come across by studying the gases trapped inside . Gases like helium and xenon can get trapped in water stuck in rock candy cracks , and measuring these can tell how old the H2O is .
“ When people suppose about this water they presume it must be some tiny amount of water trapped within the rock , ” Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar , who presented the discovery , assure BBC News . “ But in fact , it ’s very much burp right up out at you . These things are run at rates of liters per minute – the volume of the water is much larger than anyone anticipated . ”
What is more , the Brobdingnagian age of the water is not the only important breakthrough . When the researcher analyzed the liquidness , they found traces of life sentence within it . While they are yet to observe actual living bacteria , what they did discover was , in effect , the fingermark of animation . From this , they are able to infer that there has been some form of microbiology living within the water and over a very foresighted time geological period .
The fact that something has been able to survive , and indeed flourish , in water that is so old and so deep within the Earth has some important implications . Not only can it tell us about life on Earth one million million of days ago , but it may also help in the search for life off - world . While rivers no longer menstruate on the surface of Mars , there are still pocket of water and ice under the surface . These are nowhere near as deep as the water discovered in Canada , and it is possible that these pockets could provide the consideration necessary for micro-organism to survive .
An earlier version of this clause was publish on IFLScience in July 2016 .
