We all know this fact: water sustains life on Earth. It is necessary for the survival of plants, animals and human beings on the planet.
There is, however, a persistent question about this vital element: where did water come from? Did it originate from above, below or outside the Earth?
Affirming the Holy Bible's explanation on where water on Earth came from, an international team of scientists cited evidence that the precious liquid sprung from beneath our planet, not from the atmosphere or even asteroids as some other scientists earlier suggested.
The Holy Bible is clear about water on Earth coming from below the ground. The Story of Creation told in the Old Testament's Book of Genesis tells of how God initially created Earth as a water-covered sphere, and then separated the waters from the waters to create the sky or atmosphere.
In support of the Creation Story is the Bible's account of the Great Flood survived by Noah and his family, which describes how "the fountains of the great deep" broke open and covered the entire globe with water.
In a study published on the journal Nature, the scientists also concluded the underground origin of water.
"The ultimate origin of water in the Earth's hydrosphere is in the deep Earth—the mantle," the scientists wrote in their report, as quoted by Christian News.
The researchers reached this conclusion after carefully studying diamonds discovered in Brazil, which are believed to have originated from deep inside the mantle—the region of the Earth's interior between the crust that we see, and the innermost core.
"The presence of hydrous ringwoodite in a diamond from transition-zone depths supports the view that high fluid activity, notably that of water, has a key role in the genesis of ultradeep diamonds," the scientists explained in their nine-page report.
They also suggested the existence of a "major repository for water" located at the layer of the Earth's mantle about 250 to 410 miles below the surface.
The research team's leader, Canadian geochemist Graham Pearson, said there could indeed be an abundant supply of water in the Earth's mantle.
"It's actually the confirmation that there is a very, very large amount of water that's trapped in a really distinct layer in the deep Earth," Pearson said, according to Live Science.
"It translates into a very, very large mass of water, approaching the sort of mass of water that's present in all the world's ocean," he added.
