In 2016, a team of geologists led by Barbara Sherwood Lollar discovered the oldest known water on Earth, trapped nearly 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) deep in the Kidd Creek Mine in Ontario, Canada. The water was estimated to be between 1.5 and 2.6 billion years old.
The “stunning” discovery was not just the age of the water, but its surprising properties and what it revealed. Upon tasting it, Sherwood Lollar found the water to be “very salty and bitter,” much saltier than seawater. This high salinity was an indicator of its immense age, as water becomes saltier the longer it remains underground, dissolving minerals from the surrounding rock.
More importantly, the geologists discovered that the ancient water was not just a tiny, static pocket, but was flowing at a rate of several liters per minute. Most remarkably, they found traces of microbial life in the water. This indicated that organisms had been living in this isolated, deep-Earth environment for a geological timescale, surviving on the hydrogen and sulfate produced by the chemical reactions between the water and the rock, without needing sunlight.
This finding has significant implications for astrobiology, suggesting that life could exist in similar deep, dark, and isolated environments on other planets like Mars.

The Discovery of the Oldest Water on Earth

When the geologists, led by Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar, first stumbled upon the ancient water, they were unprepared for the scale of what they would find. Deep in the Canadian mine, nearly 3 kilometers below the surface, they encountered water that had been locked away for over 2.6 billion years. This water was not just a tiny trapped pocket but a flowing body of liquid that was far more abundant than anyone had anticipated.

This finding led the team to ask significant questions about how water could remain trapped for such an extensive period and still maintain the potential for microbial life. The discovery also had broad implications for understanding other subterranean environments on Earth, as well as the possibility of ancient water sources existing on other planets or moons in the Solar System.

A Closer Look at the Chemistry of Ancient Water

The water’s chemical composition further supports the theory of microbial life thriving in the absence of sunlight. The sulfate found in this water, unlike the sulfate from modern surface waters, was produced by a reaction between the water and the surrounding rock. This naturally occurring process could persist as long as the water and rock remained in contact, potentially for billions of years.

This remarkable discovery reveals a dynamic, self-sustaining system in which life could flourish for eons, driven by a chemical process rather than sunlight. This has profound implications not only for Earth’s deep biosphere but also for future studies on exoplanets and moons in our solar system.

What Does the Oldest Water Taste Like?

While the scientific implications of the discovery were awe-inspiring, there was a more personal, and slightly quirky, question that captured the imagination of many—what does 2.6-billion-year-old water taste like?

For Sherwood Lollar, the answer was found by tasting the water directly off her finger. As a geologist accustomed to licking rocks during fieldwork, she was curious to see if the water’s salinity could give clues about its age. When she tried it, she discovered that the ancient water was “very salty and bitter” and far “saltier than seawater”—exactly what she had hoped for. The high salinity indicated that the water had been in contact with minerals for an exceptionally long time, confirming its age.

What does oldest water says about life in our solar system

The discovery of Earth’s oldest water, found deep in a Canadian mine, has significant implications for the search for life beyond our planet. The water, estimated to be up to 2.6 billion years old, was not only ancient but also contained evidence of microbial life.
This finding suggests that life can exist and thrive in environments that are completely isolated from the surface of a planet and its sun. The microbes in this ancient water survived by feeding on the hydrogen and sulfate produced by a chemical reaction between the water and the rock. This means they are not dependent on photosynthesis or any energy source from the sun.
This discovery is a game-changer for astrobiology because it shows that planets and moons once thought to be uninhabitable could actually harbor life. For example, moons like Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus are covered in thick ice shells, but are believed to have subsurface oceans. The Canadian mine discovery provides a terrestrial analog, suggesting that if life exists in those oceans, it could survive and even flourish in a similar, sun-independent way. It broadens the “habitable zone” to include places we previously wouldn’t have considered.

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