Discovery of ultra rare diamond suggests Earth’s mantle has oceans’ worth of water hidden inside

Mantle water may affect how volcanoes erupt, and impact Earth’s seismic activity and plate tectonics, scientists say

Earth’s inner layers are home to a water-saturated environment, according to a new study that assessed minerals trapped inside a rare gem diamond originating from a depth of about 660km underground.

The study, published on Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, sheds more light on the Earth’s deep water cycle.

Earth is known as a water planet as the oceans make up over 70 per cent of its surface, and while studies have suggested that the inner layers of the mantle could be home to vast quantities of water, evidence that it actually does has been scarce.