VOLCANO MADNESS: Re: [Geology2] Volcanic Glass Yields Evidence of Ancient Water

Friday, March 2, 2012

Re: [Geology2] Volcanic Glass Yields Evidence of Ancient Water

Hi John,

No, it isn't. Read on:

When seawater-soaked oceanic plates descend into the mantle, heavy isotopes of hydrogen and boron are preferentially distilled away from the slab, leaving behind the light isotopes, but also leaving it dry and depleted of these elements, making the "isotope fingerprint" of the distillation process difficult to identify. But this process appears to have been preserved in at least one area: submarine volcanoes in the Manus Basin of Papua New Guinea, which erupted under more than a mile of seawater (2,000 meters). Those pressures trap water from the deep mantle within the volcanic glass.

source:http://carnegiescience.edu/news/volcanoes_deliver_two_flavors_water

Lin

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 10:18 AM, John Popelish <jpopelish@gmail.com> wrote:

On 02/27/2012 10:25 AM, Lin Kerns wrote:
(snip)
> When seawater-soaked oceanic plates descend into the
> mantle, heavy isotopes of hydrogen and boron are
> distilled away from the slab, leaving behind the light
> isotopes.

Isn't this backwards?

--
Regards,

John Popelish