The babble of a middle-aged lunatic.
From rocks to H2O
Published on November 7, 2006 By Xythe In Pure Technology
Its estimated that approximately 2/3's of the earths surface is covered by water. Roughly 326 million cubic meters of water in the earths oceans alone; staggering!

This does not include the water locked in the polar ice caps, nor in the bodies of organic life. Ground water, lacustrian environments, and the atmosphere all contain large amounts of water as well.

The question is: Where did all the earths water come from?

This question was first put to me by Rolfe Erickson, Professor of Geology during a lecture discussion many years ago.

Dr. Erickson, or as we know him, Rolfe, an Igneous Petrologist posed this question to an entire senior class. At the time, it was a very challenging question for us, and I laugh now thinking back at some of our answers. However, many of us “knowledgeable” students sat there with wrinkled foreheads, and blank looks on our faces.

After about 10 or 15 minutes of wild guesses and blank stares, Rolfe came out with:

“It’s really quite simple. All the water now present on the earth derived from the earths rocks themselves.”

After a few minutes, some of those blank stares began to spark with serendipitous thoughts of understanding; we were after all studying Igneous Petrology.

The igneous process.

Take for example, that when a volcano erupts, a large portion of what issues forth comes as volatile emissions, or gases. A very large component of the volatile erupting from a volcano is what? Yep, you guessed it - water vapor.

Do you agree? Disagree? Don’t care? Interesting? Insightful?

Comments (Page 2)
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on Nov 07, 2006
The reaction for water would be:

O2 + 2H2 ----> 2H2O

Now, if you want to neutralize something...you'll get a salt and water. (Metathesis..aka double replacement)

2NaOH(a base) + H2SO4(an acid) ----> Na2SO4 + 2H2O

Burning a hydrocarbon does it too. (A combustion reaction)

CH4 + 2O2 ---heat---> CO2 + 2H2O

You can also have a bunch of dehydration reactions: alcohols to ethers, alcohols to alkenes, carboxylic acids to acid anhydrides. (there are probably a bunch more...and these are a pain to write out, but they do have H2O as a product. Google "dehydration reactions" and you should get a good list of them.)

I'm sure there are more reactions that have H2O as a product...but these are enough for now. It's just to prove that there are several reactions which can produce water.

Those are 4 of the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

That's what chemistry has instilled in me in the ways of water products.

~Zoo
on Nov 07, 2006
Good, God...with my arguments for evolution and my knowledge of chemistry, no one will doubt that I'm a science major.

~Zoo
on Nov 08, 2006
Good, God...with my arguments for evolution and my knowledge of chemistry, no one will doubt that I'm a science major.


I love ya man.

Zoo, please do not be discouraged. This is what real science is. Its not personal, and I am hearing you my friend...believe me.

No matter where you stand in your education, its only a representation of your thoughts. Your education will simply help you explain things differently.

Be thankful your not an engineer inside the box where everything is black and white.

When you fail in science, you turn to politics.

The physical world exists whether humans are here or not. Politics are for the confused. A way to trade off certain failures of understanding the universe for something that is completely man made, intangible, radical, and mostly unpredictable...politics and economics.

Relish in your purity of heart.

Never lose that or simply become another cog in the machine.

End rant. Time for another martini.

Feel free to correct my spelling or grammer.
on Nov 08, 2006
Zoo, please do not be discouraged.


Discouraged?...Bwahaha! Hardly...I love science. It's a hell of a lot better than calculus at any rate. I understand everything I've been taught perfectly...the only reason it's such a pain in the ass is how they do these damn exams....you have to pick the questions apart and find the true meaning of the question. It's like a Where's Waldo in knowledge...if they would ask a straight question for once, my experience would be much more pleasurable....but still...I'd be lost if these same tactics were used in economics, politics, and calculus. I hate calculus if you haven't figured that out by now...which I have to take next semester....blah...oh well, at least I took it in high school, so I know what's coming up.

Anywho...did those reactions help at all?

Oh...and:
Feel free to correct my spelling or grammer.


"Grammar" has an 'a'. heh heh heh

~Zoo

on Nov 08, 2006

It's a hell of a lot better than calculus at any rate

Bite your tongue!  Calculus is king!

on Nov 08, 2006
Most likely the compounds for water were broken down from other gases that were volatilized out of the molten earth after it formed. The comet idea is somewhat applicable because before the earth formed it was a collection of gas and other materials that accreted to become the earth, which, like a comet, are a variety of chunks in space. As for a mechanism, intense heat, radioactivity and photoionization could've played key roles.

Mars would be too small to hold much of an atmosphere thus water wouldn't be able to stay in liquid form there very well, it also is not a very active planet which is another problem for atmosphere maintenance, I can't say at all because I don't know for sure. Venus is large enough but didn't get the right chemical composition and is so closer to the sun so evaporation of other materials interfered with the process. But I was interested to hear that some scientists believe the surface might be covered in iron pyrite (fools gold) FeS2 which would be from lots and lots of sulphur in the atmosphere.

Perhaps that explanation was too basic and you were more interested in the real physical process. In that case, most likely Zoo's methane reaction would be principle, and free oxygen could be provided by chemical reaction of silicates and other rocks in the ancient earth. Just about every rock, molten or otherwise contains lots of oxygen that could be given up. I'm not too confident in my ability to remember the supposed content of the early atmosphere.

Interesting question. I hope I haven't insulted anyone's intelligence.

on Nov 08, 2006
Bite your tongue! Calculus is king!


I only bite my toungue when I'm doing calc...to keep my head from exploding.

~Zoo
on Nov 08, 2006
Bite your tongue! Calculus is king!I only bite my toungue when I'm doing calc...to keep my head from exploding.


Actually Calculus is "Queen"; the queen of science.

So look at it as a way to express your science universally Zoo.

Embrace it as a language and it will be a lot more fun for you
on Nov 08, 2006
Embrace it as a language and it will be a lot more fun for you


Nope, still a pain in the ass.

~Zoo
on Nov 08, 2006
Nope, still a pain in the ass.


Yeah, I know. It always was fro me as well. It will all be over soon though.
on Nov 08, 2006
Most likely the compounds for water were broken down from other gases that were volatilized out of the molten earth after it formed.


Sounds like what I was thinking Sarkos

Mars would be too small to hold much of an atmosphere thus water wouldn't be able to stay in liquid form there very well, it also is not a very active planet which is another problem for atmosphere maintenance, I can't say at all because I don't know for sure.


I can't remember all of what I read about this a while back, but what you mention was a concern. I think they were thinking to set off a bunch of well placed CH4 "Bomps" to try and start some form of rudimentary atmosphere.

Perhaps that explanation was too basic and you were more interested in the real physical process.


Nope, you did great here Sarkos. Anything more technical would be over the heads of many folks, and serve no purpose other than to confuse some even more.

Interesting question. I hope I haven't insulted anyone's intelligence.


Thank you so much for your input!
on Nov 09, 2006
I took Chemistry in highschol and got a D in chemistry ok, mostly because I had three other college level classes, a daily 3-11pm job, and a gf all at the same time. So I'm not very good at explaining it. I honestly wasn't trying to be insulting at all Xythe, either by trying to explain it, or suggesting that you take a class if you are interested. I did in high school because my 5th grade teacher told me and I liked him a lot. It was one of the very best classes I took even though I got a "D" lol.

I was just trying to explain your question "Where did all the earths water come from?"

More of the scientific explanation. In the beginning, this is all theory here, just after the big bang there was a lot of mass and a lot of energy in a very small space, nothing was organized as atoms or particular elements yet. As time went on nuclear fission and fusion created atoms with fewer electrons and atoms with greater electrons, eventually as the universe expanded because of the strong repulsive force big gaps were developed, areas in these gaps became cooler as energy levels (heat) became lower, large clouds of space dust and tiny particles formed, gravity pulled these clouds of atoms into stars and rotated these concentrations of space dust, planets formed by being large collections of dense areas orbiting even greater areas of space dust. To today, where we have stars with planets orbiting them. As planets and stars cooled to a level similar to ours today, and as time went on a whole bunch of different atoms of different types were made by the various processes in the galaxy. Of course not all of this is understood and a lot is educated guessing and indirect conclusion. But a great deal is understood and pieced together into a pretty accurate picuture of the galaxy which I'm not too brushed up on to convey. What I can tell you is that these advancements were largely made in the last 1000 years and due in large part to the scientific method. Onto more specific answering.

The equation O2 + 2H2 ----> 2H2O means that O2, which is the oxygen molecule. Most atoms are not found in elemental form, that is all, by themselves, they pair up with themselves to make molecules. Added to 2H2 two hydrogen molecules bonded to themselves, makes 2H2O, the way it is written with the numbers sometimes behind and sometimes in front of the letter is crazy but it is chemistry. Basically it means that two hydrogen atoms bond with one oxygen atom twice over, for a total of 4 hydrogen atoms and 2 oxygen atoms, or two hydrogen molecules combined with one oxygen molecule. When this happens the result is water.

Why does it happen? To understand that, you have to understand bonding between atoms, it involves the charge force, or positive and negative, gravity, the strong force and the weak force, so basically 4 forces that control what happens between atoms. Since I don't remember much about how bonds work... The bottom line is that elements on one side of the perodic chart like to form bonds with atoms on the other side. They react that way. When oxygen is combined with just about any metal it rusts this is oxidation, or oxygen combinging with the outer exposed layer of metal. Same with when you light a match only the oxidation is much more rapid.

Basically it's nature, and science but only natural for elements to form bonds with themselves, into molecules. I'm sorry that I'm not that practice in chemistry, I'm more of an electronic assembler and chemistry isn't really needed unfortunately. I do find it facinating though.
on Nov 09, 2006
Since I don't remember much about how bonds work...




Covalent bonds work with shared electron pairs...the octet configuration comes into play here. Ionic bonds have to do with pure electric charge.



Dan didn't do too bad of a job, even if he is a bit rusty. The numbers get a bit confusing when you can't properly notate them here.(subscripts, superscripts, and coefficients)



I aced chemistry (and astronomy, since we're talking about the universe here as well) in high school...unfortunately I can only manage a C in college(it has been 2 years since I've had this stuff...and it goes really fast. Thermochemistry messed me up the most though...damn Joules/mole )...but I hope to bring that up a bit before the end of the semester...and definately do better in these next few years.



I could go into so much detail...but I have to focus on my zoology class tonight...so no chem to clutter the mind...except for NAG & NAM and NAG & NAT...and nitrogen fixation.



~Zoo
on Nov 10, 2006
and nitrogen fixation.


Don't remember/know much about this, but Legumes come to mind.
on Nov 10, 2006
Don't remember/know much about this, but Legumes come to mind.


Right you are...a specific type of legume(soybeans, clover, etc.) develop a symbiotic relationship with a plant specific bacteria, a rhizobium. Clover have their own specific one, soybeans have theirs and so on and so forth. The root will send out an infection thread to invite the bacteria into one of their cells and then they start dividing and end up making nodules. By working together they can make leghemoblin(or something very close to that spelling) which illustrates co-evolution. Anywho, the rhizobium are anaerobic, so while in the plant they're protected from the O2 in the atmosphere and help to fix nitrogen...the plant can't use all of it, so there is excess N in the soil. Boo yah!

NAG & NAM are abbreviations for the compounds that make up peptidoglycan, the material that a bacterial cell wall is composed of. NAG & NAT are the compunds that make up pseudopeptidoglycan....which makes up the cell walls for archeae.

I think I did very well on my exam this morning...it only took me 10 minutes for 50 multiple choice questions. Oh yeah!

~Zoo
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