image: Scanning electron microscope images showing one of our Baffin Island rock samples. Large olivine mineral grains dominate this rock (mid-gray colored grains in image A). These olivine grains contain trapped pockets of glass, known as melt inclusions (image B), and this glass contains tiny amounts of water sourced from the mantle plume. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the Nov. 13, 2015 issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by L.J. Hallis at NASA Astrobiology Institute in Honolulu, HI, and colleagues was titled, 'Evidence for primordial water in Earth's deep mantle.' view more
Credit: Image produced by Lydia J. Hallis