There is no consensus in the scientific world; the answer to the question of the origin of water on Earth is still open. Therefore, let’s start thinking together.…
Where to begin? – Perhaps it would be better from the very beginning – from the birth of the planet.
“That which is comprehended through reflection and reasoning is obviously an eternally identical being; and that which is subject to opinion… it arises and perishes, but it never really exists.” (IV century BC, Plato).
As the researchers have already established, the Sun and the planets of the solar system (taking into account the calculation error) are approximately all the same age, 4.5 – 4.6 billion years. That is, all the planets appeared at the same time, and the countdown of their lives began at the same time.
4.57 billion years ago, the Sun, Earth, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and others were in the same state, created from the same material, “mixed in the same pan of the same dough.”
The Earth was as hot as the current Sun, and even more so (considering that the Sun had also cooled down over time).
In the years following birth, the cooling of the planets of the solar system proceeded at their own individual rate, mainly depending on their own mass and distance from the Sun.
The smaller the mass of the planet and the farther it was from the Sun, the faster it cooled. The temperature in Space is “absolute zero” -273.15 °C.
The smallest Moon was the first (of the above) to freeze; its mass is 81.3 times smaller than the Earth, and therefore it cooled 81.3 times (or more) faster than the Earth.
The mass of the Sun is 332,946 times the mass of the Earth, and therefore, it cools down
332,946 times compared to the Earth (or even more slowly).
Jupiter has 318 times the mass of Earth and, although it is farther from the Sun, it still cools more slowly. According to measurements by the Galileo probe in 1995, the temperature in the atmosphere of Jupiter at an altitude of 60 km above the surface was + 152 °C.
The further away the planets are from the warming Sun, the faster they freeze.
The cooling rate of the planets is different for everyone.
All (almost all) water on Earth is of terrestrial origin.
When the Earth began to cool down, its smooth, molten surface ceased to be smooth. Thermal contractions and expansions in different directions, various chemical elements from the composition of the earth’s crust have mottled the “face” of the planet. For this reason, deep cracks appeared in the earth’s crust and mountains rose.
The picture below shows the relief of the modern, frozen Earth’s crust.
There is no smooth surface on Earth. – How did the relief form?
The density of molten iron and aluminum increases during cooling, and accordingly, they decrease in volume. For example, at a temperature of 1800 °C, the density of iron is 6.76 g/cm³, and at 20 °C, 7.87 g/cm³ (the volume of iron shrank by 16.4% during cooling). At a temperature of 1000 °C, the density of liquid aluminum is 2.289 g/cm3, and cold aluminum at 20 °C is 2.6989 g/cm3 (the volume has shrunk by 17.9%).
On the contrary, the density of silicon decreases during cooling, which means that its volume increases. The density of molten silicon at 1450 °C is 2.53 g/cm3, and the density of cold silicon at 20 °C is 2.33 g/cm3 (the volume increases by 8.6%). Silicon behaves the same way as water, which freezes and turns into ice and increases in volume.
There is no general rule. Various terrestrial chemical elements either contract or expand as they cool down, which is called a temperature density anomaly.
Because of this, when the planet Earth cools down, bulges or dips form on the surface in different places, and extensive underground voids arise from internal ruptures.
The percentage of the earth’s crust, according to official data, is as follows: oxygen – 46.1%, silicon – 28.2%, aluminum – 8.23%, iron – 5.63%, calcium – 4.15%, sodium – 2.35%, magnesium – 2.33%, potassium – 2.09%, and all other elements, each less than 1%.
Oxygen in the earth’s crust is bound in the composition of various minerals: silicates, carbonates, sulfates, iron oxides, quartz, and does not have a great influence on the process of volumetric action during the cooling of the earth’s crust.
Silicon is the most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, and therefore the Earth as a whole, when cooled (in the aggregate of all solidified chemical elements), presumably expanded. The earth has become larger in volume, presumably by 10% (or more). The Earth became like an inflated “rubber ball”, and as a result, all the modern continents, already frozen in the Earth’s crust, spread out across the globe in different directions.
Under pressure from the frozen rock, hills and mountains appeared in some places of the planet, while in others sinkholes and cracks formed, which eventually filled with water (modern oceanic depressions).
At the same time, solidified fragments of the Earth’s crust (tectonic plates), “floating” on the liquid surface of the planet, had an impact on the formation of the relief of the Earth’s surface. Their directions of movement were not predictable, as they were affected by many factors: the cold of Space, heating from the Sun, internal heating, and inertial movements from rotation around the axis of the planet itself, etc.
The formation of water on Earth
“Imagination is more important than knowledge… Everything should be stated as simply as possible, but not simpler.” (A. Einstein).
With the beginning of the cooling of the planet, its atmosphere and water cover began to be created.
Initially, there were no volcanoes on Earth, and the outflow of gases occurred simultaneously over the entire surface of the planet from many cracks in the crust.
Volcanoes appeared on Earth much later, billions and hundreds of millions of years later, when the frozen crust of the Earth became thick, and molten magma protruding from the bowels of the planet, compressed from all sides, was squeezed to the surface.
Modern volcanoes emit mostly water vapor (H2O) into the atmosphere, which is about 60% to 99% of the total volume of outgoing gas. The same emissions of water vapor from the surface of the entire planet were also present during the initial cooling period of the planet, when there were no volcanoes yet.
The cooling Earth, viewed from Space, resembled a “steam bath” shrouded in fog and hot steam. Water vapor from the bowels of the planet rose into the atmosphere, and there, cooled, it rained on the Ground.
The Earth has not completely cooled down to this day, and the process of water formation from the bowels of the planet continues, albeit in much smaller quantities than at the beginning.
In many hundreds of millions of years or even billions of years, when the Earth cools down even more, it will look like a modern, dry Mars. The water on Earth will all evaporate and remain only in the ice at the poles, while the composition of the atmosphere will change, and the atmosphere will be emptier and rarer.
If it cools down further after billions of years, the Earth will slow down in rotation, and then it will stop altogether and will look like a modern dead moon.…
How the seas and oceans formed on Earth
3.6 – 3.8 billion years ago (as researchers say), the first simple living microorganisms appeared on Earth. Therefore, we must assume that by this time, the Earth had already cooled down a little to a state where the first small stable amount of water could appear on its surface.
Water (H2O), consisting of oxygen and hydrogen molecules, according to Canadian scientists from the University of Saskatchewan, occurs in the bowels of the Earth at a depth of 40-400 km at a high temperature of about 1,500 °C and at a pressure of 20,000 atmospheres.
As the planet cooled, the formation of new water on Earth began to gradually outpace its current temperature evaporation.
The fog in the Earth’s atmosphere from the steam bath gradually dissipated, and water began to accumulate, flowing in small rivulets into the lowest places of the planet’s relief, and through cracks in the Earth’s crust, it filled its internal underground voids.
The water filled all the places outside and inside the planet where it could penetrate.
Initially, small puddles formed on the Earth’s surface from water vapor and rain, which gradually combined into small shallow lakes as water accumulated. Subsequently, these lakes merged, joined, forming large bodies of water, and finally, they turned into large seas.
The earth was cooling down more and more, and the waters on it were coming and coming.
After hundreds of millions of years, the self-formed individual seas began to touch each other with their edges.
In different seas and oceans on Earth, as shown in the picture in the North and Baltic Seas, water does not mix.
For example, the water of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans has different densities.
In the Pacific Ocean, the average density of water is 1.02427 g/cm3, and in the Atlantic Ocean, it is 1.02543 g/cm3.
The oceans have different water compositions in terms of salinity. The Atlantic Ocean has slightly saltier water than the Pacific Ocean.
A small difference in density and salinity is enough for the oceans to stand in a “wall” against each other and not mix for millions of years. – This phenomenon is called halocline: https://ru.wikipedia.org/галоклин
The fact that the water of the neighboring seas does not mix indicates that the seas on Earth arose separately.
The seas have been slowly filling with water for millions of years. The water dissolved the surrounding salts, absorbing various chemical elements of the Earth’s rock.
Comets are not capable of delivering to Earth such a huge mass of terrestrial water as exists on Earth now. Perhaps, in our entire galaxy, there are no such comets with water that could reach the Earth. There was and still is water on comets that hit Earth, but it is just a small “drop” in the mass of water in the Earth’s seas and oceans.
How do I finish the material? – The words of the ancient Greek thinker Plato are suitable.
We would only dare to insist that what we have said is the truth with God’s direct permission, but we have kept the credibility, we can safely say that…”. (IV century BC, Plato).
Vladimir Garmatyuk
http://garmatyuk.viperson.ru
Russia, Vologda
18.08.2025
Source: newsghana.com.gh
