3-D seismic model of vast water reservoir revealed

Eric ChouA slice through the earth, showing the attenuation anomalies within the mantle.A seismologist at Washington University in St. Louis has made the first 3-D model of seismic wave damping — diminishing — deep in the Earth’s mantle and has revealed the existence of an underground water reservoir at least the volume of the Arctic Ocean. The research, which analyzed 80,000 shear waves from more than 600,000 seismograms, provides the first evidence for water existing in the Earth’s deep mantle.