Scientists find oceans of water on Mars: It's just too deep to tap

 Using seismic activity to probe the interior of Mars, geophysicists have found evidence for a large underground reservoir of liquid water -- enough to fill oceans on the planet's surface.

The data from NASA's Insight lander allowed the scientists to estimate that the amount of groundwater could cover the entire planet to a depth of between 1 and 2 kilometers, or about a mile.

While that's good news for those tracking the fate of water on the planet after its oceans disappeared more than 3 billion years ago, the reservoir won't be of much use to anyone trying to tap into it to supply a future Mars colony. It's located in tiny cracks and pores in rock in the middle of the Martian crust, between 11.5 and 20 kilometers below the surface. Even on Earth, drilling a hole a kilometer deep is a challenge.

The finding does pinpoint another promising place to look for life on Mars, however, if the reservoir can be accessed. For the moment, it helps answer questions about the geological history of the planet.

"Understanding the Martian water cycle is critical for understanding the evolution of the climate, surface and interior," said Vashan Wright, a former UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow who is now an assistant professor at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "A useful starting point is to identify where water is and how much is there."

Wright, alongside colleagues Michael Manga of UC Berkeley and Matthias Morzfeld of Scripps Oceanography, detailed their analysis in a paper that will appear this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The scientists employed a mathematical model of rock physics, identical to models used on Earth to map underground aquifers and oil fields, to conclude that the seismic data from Insight are best explained by a deep layer of fractured igneous rock saturated with liquid water. Igneous rocks are cooled hot magma, like the granite of the Sierra Nevada.

"Establishing that there is a big reservoir of liquid water provides some window into what the climate was like or could be like," said Manga, a UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science. "And water is necessary for life as we know it. I don't see why [the underground reservoir] is not a habitable environment. It's certainly true on Earth -- deep, deep mines host life, the bottom of the ocean hosts life. We haven't found any evidence for life on Mars, but at least we have identified a place that should, in principle, be able to sustain life."

Manga was Wright's postdoctoral adviser. Morzfeld was a former postdoctoral fellow in UC Berkeley's mathematics department and is now an associate professor of geophysics at Scripps Oceanography.

Source: ScienceDaily