Science Forums 2

[HydrogenBond]

What makes the most sense, is that the solar system stuff from which the sun and planets would form created its own density gradient, making the inside planets denser and the outer planets gaseous, with plenty of water, hydrated onto dust, concentrated where the earth would form. I am glad the comet theory for water was put to rest. Comets will also someday be put to rest with respect to the seeding of life. The earth had all it needed to get the job done, i.e, water and organics.

What is sort of interesting; if one placed a block of earth crust in a vessel and placed water on top, sealed it, and then heated it to the critical point of water, and then set up a thermal gradient, i.e, top cool and bottom hotter like the earth, the critical water will dissolve its way to the bottom, with the minerals in the crust crystallizing on top, even though the water has a lower density than the crust. A chemical potential drives the process. This is one way to make synthetic crystals like quartz and emeralds. If we reverse the thermal gradient (hot-top), the water would go up and crystals would form on the bottom. The earth has hot down instead of up. This earth design allows critical water to dissolve its way into the mantle replacing solids behind it.

One may ask, if water is in the mantle why do volcanos mostly have minerals and not too much water? The answer is simple, the water is displacing the minerals up.