Apparently the writer Jules Verne was not far off when in 1864 he envisioned a "Journey to the center of the Earth" in which the protagonists found themselves in an authentic ocean in the depths of our globe. The discovery of a water-rich diamond offers new evidence for the existence of large volumes of water in the depths of the Earth .
The discovery of this mineral called ringwoodite was possible thanks to a team of researchers from the University of Alberta (Canada) led by the geochemistry expert of the earth's mantle Graham Pearson, who found the stone in 2008 in the bed of a Brazilian river while they were looking for other minerals. The mineral rose to the surface from deep within the Earth because it would probably have been dragged to the surface by a volcanic rock known as "kimberlite."
The analysis of it has determined that 1.5 percent of its weight is water , which is equivalent to a significant amount, thus confirming the theories about the existence of a large amount of water deep in the Earth. The researchers clarify that it is possible that between 410 and 660 kilometers inland there is as much water as if we joined all the liquid from the planet's oceans.
Ringwoodite could be the most abundant mineral in this area of the mantle (between the upper and lower mantles), according to the researchers in their study published in the journal Nature .
