Where on Earth has our water come from?
Evidence that water was incorporated into the Earth at the beginning of its planet Formation from within the dust that formed it has been reported in Chemical Communications. The origin of the abundant levels of water on Earth has long been debated with the main differences in the theories being the nature of the material that carries the water, and whether the water came during or after planet formation.
Nora de Leeuw and colleagues used molecular-level calculations to prove that dissociative chemisorption of water onto the surface of olivine rich minerals, such as forsterite, is highly exothermic. And so under the conditions present during Earth formation, gas-solid interactions could have resulted in water being adsorbed onto the surface of the dust particles that created the Earth.
The new work challenges the common assumption made by astronomers that the Earth’s water originated from bodies in the asteroid belt or beyond and supports models where water retention on mineral surfaces is responsible for the water content of the Earth say the authors.
Original publication: Nora H. de Leeuw, C. Richard A. Catlow, Helen E. King, Andrew Putnis, Krishna D. Muralidharan, Pierre Deymier,c Marilena Stimpfl and Michael J. Drake N. H. de Leeuw, Chem. Commun.
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