At https://phys.org/news/2025-10-scientists-explanation-oddball-rich-exoplanets.html … another interesting research paper. It skirts around the mainstream narrative but manages to get across a different way of looking at the origin of water on planets. The targets chosen are exoplanets. The oddballs are big watery planets, known as sub-Neptunes because they resemble our planet Neptune in some details, that orbit too closely to their home star to be configured into the mainstream model of water on planets. How then do the oddballs get their wateryness? The solution is quite brilliant – and although they say this could not happen as far as Earth is concerned one has to wonder, why not. Saying the origin of water on Earth was similar is unimportant for the time being. It is more important for it to be accepted as the origin of water on oddball sub-Neptunes. Once that has been done scientists will then be able to look more closely at the origin of water on Earth – even though it requires very high pressure rates that do not occur on Earth. They might do during catastrophic events such as Earth being impacted by space rocks – such as the Chicxulub asteroid that threw huge amounts of water around.
It is thought, but not by everyone, that water arrived on Earth from outside. It is speculated it arrived via comets and meteors as the latter have been found to contain the ingredients for making water. Others claim cometary water is quite unlike earthbound water and have speculated water may lie in a huge internal reservoir beneath the surface of the Earth. That is interesting but the internal water would have to come from somewhere – or be made via some process or other. Comet 31/ATLAS, an interstellar object, appears to contain a lot of water – or the ingredients of water are fused into actual water by the process of encountering the solar wind from our Sun. Possibilities exist. Exoplanets, it seems, diverge from the mainstream mantra that water, and oxygen, were introduced to Earth at a later stage of Earth’s existence, even though the presence of oxygen in the building blocks of planets may say otherwise. The mainstream view is that the evolution of plants played a major role in the production of oxygen on Earth. Photo synthesis was involved. Therefore, early levels of oxygen must have been depleted or the mainstream view would be wrong. So, for at least a time that idea ruled the roost. It may still be the top dog theory. This is where the new findings get interesting. We have lots of hydrogen on Earth – and so do some exoplanets. Especially the oddballs. Experiments have shown that hydrogen can reduce iron in silicites, producing water. Water can be derived from silica, presumably as it has an oxygen component that fuses with the hydrogen. H2O. I hope I have understood that properly. The question they asked themselves was can rocky cores to planets form their own water – and a hydrogen rich atmosphere. Reactions between dense hydrogen fluid and silicate melt releases silicon from the magma inside the Earth to form alloys and hybrides at high pressure. Oxygen liberated from silica melt reacts with the hydrogen – producing water. In high amounts. Not a dribble, not a reasonable flow – but in high amounts. This accounts for the very large percentages of water on oddball exoplanets. They are swimming in water – and sometimes where they orbit very close to their home star. It can’t be due to ice sublimation as ice would be an unlikly component of an exoplanet orbiting too closely. As I said, a brilliant explanation.
One thing to muse over. If water was being made on Earth in the wake of catastrophic events would that expansion of the water lead to an expanding Earth? Another interesting question might be posed by the origin of flint on the sea floor – or in watery environments such as chalk geology. Flint is basically silica. Flint can wrap it self around fossilised marine life such as sponges and encase the remains. In the main, flint occurs in laminate sheets running through the chalk [the shells of plankton] in what are basically seams, or it occurs as nodules. On Norfolk beaches the nodules can be quite big – several feet across. Pebbles on the beaches of southern and eastern England are largely composed of broken flint, smoothed and rounded and becoming smaller by the year. The origin of flint is disputed and realistic geologists will say it is an open debate. Others will insist it has a uniformitarian explanation and point at the fossils sometimes embedded within it. However, in the light of the above it may be that Chicxulub did not just alter the landscape by leaving behind the chalk but it may even have been the catalyst for the creation of flint on the sea floor. Assuming it was later raised up as dry land rather than being thrown up in a huge redistribution of the Atlantic sea floor as a result of the asteroid strike. Catastrophists can of course muse over such things but mainstream geologists leave it well alone as they have to get on with discovering oil and gas deposits etc.
At https://phys.org/news/2025-10-myanmar-fault-ideal-geometry-supershear.html … the March 2025 Myanmar earthquake ruptured 530 km of the Sangaing Fault – with a 40 km section of it moving faster than the speed of seismic shear waves. This is known as a supershear rupture – a major catastrophic event for life along the fault line system.Why did it move so fast. Apparently, it was because the fault line was very straight and the wave could propel itself without interruption by kinks in the tail. Such earthquakes generate shock waves that amplify ground shaking – causing more damage that in a normal earthquake. Using global seismic data and a satellite video as well as optical imagery, researchers were able to reconstruct the Myanmar rupture in detail. The earthquake caused buildings to collapse and soil to liquify – actually visble from satellites orbiting the Earth. Soil liquefactions is an interesting phenomenon. Might be worth checking out what that involves – over the long term.