Origin of Earth’s oceans: An assessment of the total amount, history and supply of water
Open accessAbstract
The presence of water on Earth has played important roles in shaping the solid regions of the planet as well as in the origin and evolution of life. This paper addresses three fundamental aspects of Earth’s water; (1) the quantity of water on the surface and in the interior that Earth possesses, (2) the length of time that surface oceans have been present, and (3) the mechanism(s) by which this water was supplied or generated. From geochemical and geophysical analysis, and high-pressure experimental works, the water content in the Earth’s mantle can be estimated to be from one to ten times the present ocean mass. Although it is difficult to estimate the water content in the Earth’s core, recent high-pressure experimental work indicates copious amounts of hydrogen in the core. From geological and geochemical evidence, the Earth’s surface oceans appear to have existed since very early in the Earth’s history, perhaps even since the Earth’s formation. However, changes in the ocean volume throughout the Earth’s history have not been well determined. Several possible water sources and supply mechanisms have been proposed, in association with theories regarding planet formation in our solar system. Since there are several uncertainties concerning the process of planet formation, the origin of the Earth’s water is still in question.
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Half that volume has since been lost by subduction and photodissociation.
“Half that volume has since been lost by subduction of serpentinized and otherwise hydrated crust to the now relatively wet mantle, and to photodissociation (Bounama et al. 2001;Elkins-Tanton 2008;Genda 2016).”
From The Emergence of Life (2019) · cites this paper as Genda 2016
Cites
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Source regions and timescales for the delivery of water to the Earth
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“…gravitational disturbance of the asteroid belt region by Jupiter, it has been proposed that a large fraction of asteroids is ejected, some of which collide with Earth (Morbidelli et al., 2000; Raymond et al., 2009), which is consistent with the extreme mass depletion of the present asteroid belt.”
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“A planet with oceans has an upper limit of planetary radiation (Kasting, 1988; Nakajima et al., 1992; Kodama et al., 2015).”
BackgroundPriscoan (4.00–4.03 Ga) orthogneisses from northwestern Canada
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“In the terrestrial planet region, rocky planets such as Earth and Venus were formed during this stage.”
InfluentialWidespread mixing and burial of Earth’s Hadean crust by asteroid impacts
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Camprubí, E., de Leeuw, J. W., House, C. H., Raulin, F., Russell, M. J., Spang, A., Tirumalai, M. R., & Westall, F. (2019) · Space Science Reviews · doi:10.1007/s11214-019-0624-8 · Cited by 84 · see citing works
“Half that volume has since been lost by subduction of serpentinized and otherwise hydrated crust to the now relatively wet mantle, and to photodissociation (Bounama et al. 2001; Elkins-Tanton 2008; Genda 2016).”
Background
- Authors
- Genda, H.
- Affiliations
- Tokyo Institute of Technology (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Genda, Hidenori
- ORCID
- Genda, Hidenori
- Venue
- GEOCHEMICAL JOURNAL
- Publisher
- Geochemical Society of Japan
- Published
- 2016
- Volume
- 50
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 27-42
- ISSN
- 0016-7002 (ISSN-L)
- 1880-5973
- OpenAlex
- W2280059247
- Cited by
- 75
- References
- 9
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 4
- FWCI
- 3.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- GEOCHEMICAL JOURNAL (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Kurita Water and Environment Foundation
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (26287125, 15K13562)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astro and Planetary Science
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geophysics › Geological and Geochemical Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geophysics › High-pressure geophysics and materials
- Keywords
- planet formation, early Earth, high-pressure experiments
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