A few months ago someone had approached me with a story about water that sounded intriguing until he started to talk about a grand cover-up by the government to keep the information secret; conspiracy theorists can make me tired. Maybe there are a bunch of conspiracies going on all around me, but in my experience humans are not very good at the kind of communication and organization that would be required to carry off these grand schemes that are supposedly pulling the wool over the rest of our eyes.
Don’t get me wrong. I know that in addition to ordinary human stupidity, some very bad stuff happens. Sometimes it is even highly organized, such as the Nazi example. However, there was plenty of evidence that things in Germany were very off kilter at that time. I’m not aware of any evidence to suggest this person’s concerns are valid. Nonetheless, I’ll meander towards the part of his pitch that did make me curious.
California is in a drought (Have you heard?). It is bad enough now that Governor Brown has instituted mandatory restrictions for the many water boards in the state to implement. Here are links to two maps, one from the New York Times (“How Much Water Californians Use at Home”), showing gallons per capita used in different CA communities; the other from Circle of Blue (California Water News: “Volume Data for 44 of 45 Reservoirs”), which shows reservoir levels.
With this worsening situation as the backdrop, what the person had approached me to tell me is that there is plentiful water to be had…but information about where it is and how to get at it is being kept deliberately hidden. As I’ve said, I was less interested in the second part of that…but the first part touched my interest when what he said was that in the same way that blood is created by bone (in the marrow), water is being created within rock deep inside the earth.
A few months ago someone had approached me with a story about water that sounded intriguing until he started to talk about a grand cover-up by the government to keep the information secret; conspiracy theorists can make me tired. Maybe there are a bunch of conspiracies going on all around me, but in my experience humans are not very good at the kind of communication and organization that would be required to carry off these grand schemes that are supposedly pulling the wool over the rest of our eyes.
Don’t get me wrong. I know that in addition to ordinary human stupidity, some very bad stuff happens. Sometimes it is even highly organized, such as the Nazi example. However, there was plenty of evidence that things in Germany were very off kilter at that time. I’m not aware of any evidence to suggest this person’s concerns are valid. Nonetheless, I’ll meander towards the part of his pitch that did make me curious.
California is in a drought (Have you heard?). It is bad enough now that Governor Brown has instituted mandatory restrictions for the many water boards in the state to implement. Here are links to two maps, one from the New York Times (“How Much Water Californians Use at Home”), showing gallons per capita used in different CA communities; the other from Circle of Blue (California Water News: “Volume Data for 44 of 45 Reservoirs”), which shows reservoir levels.
With this worsening situation as the backdrop, what the person had approached me to tell me is that there is plentiful water to be had...but information about where it is and how to get at it is being kept deliberately hidden. As I’ve said, I was less interested in the second part of that...but the first part touched my interest when what he said was that in the same way that blood is created by bone (in the marrow), water is being created within rock deep inside the earth.
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My first attempt to look into this yielded nothing, though, and so I put it out of mind.
But today while searching the Internet for information on surface water as a prelude to discussing an upcoming Surface Water Master Class Series from Forester University, some surprising words surfaced on some websites: "fossil water", "magmatic water", and "juvenile water".
Here’s what Oxford References says about juvenile water and magmatic water: “Original water, formed as a result of magmatic processes. Juvenile water has never been in the atmosphere. Magmatic water can form in very large quantities. A magma body with a density of 2.5, an assumed water content of 5% by weight, a thickness of 1 km, and an area of 10 km2 contains some 1.25 × 109 m3 of water. See also groundwater.”
Wikipedia defines fossil water this way: “Fossil water or paleowater is groundwater that has remained sealed in an aquifer for thousands or even millions of years due to changes in the surrounding geology. The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System is among the most notable of fossil water reserves. Fossil aquifers also exist in the Sahara, the Kalahari, and the Ogallala underlying the US Great Plains. A further potential store of ancient water is Lake Vostok, a subglacial lake in Antarctica.”
My personal feeling is that certain stewardship guidelines ought to apply to the uses of any water sources, whether currently known or discovered at a future time. While I respect and appreciate that perhaps the earth does create water in its secret chambers, the idea of a limitless supply is an Edenic dream. Pollution, overpumping, overusing, ill conceived diversions—we can’t dismiss these issues in the hope of an eternal fountain.
My first attempt to look into this yielded nothing, though, and so I put it out of mind.
But today while searching the Internet for information on surface water as a prelude to discussing an upcoming Surface Water Master Class Series from Forester University, some surprising words surfaced on some websites: “fossil water”, “magmatic water”, and “juvenile water”.
Here’s what Oxford References says about juvenile water and magmatic water: “Original water, formed as a result of magmatic processes. Juvenile water has never been in the atmosphere. Magmatic water can form in very large quantities. A magma body with a density of 2.5, an assumed water content of 5% by weight, a thickness of 1 km, and an area of 10 km2 contains some 1.25 × 109 m3 of water. See also groundwater.”
Wikipedia defines fossil water this way: “Fossil water or paleowater is groundwater that has remained sealed in an aquifer for thousands or even millions of years due to changes in the surrounding geology. The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System is among the most notable of fossil water reserves. Fossil aquifers also exist in the Sahara, the Kalahari, and the Ogallala underlying the US Great Plains. A further potential store of ancient water is Lake Vostok, a subglacial lake in Antarctica.”
My personal feeling is that certain stewardship guidelines ought to apply to the uses of any water sources, whether currently known or discovered at a future time. While I respect and appreciate that perhaps the earth does create water in its secret chambers, the idea of a limitless supply is an Edenic dream. Pollution, overpumping, overusing, ill conceived diversions—we can’t dismiss these issues in the hope of an eternal fountain.
