News and Events
- UCD-led space project receives over €7.9m from Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund
- UCD Researchers awarded over €4m in ERC grants for Biomedical Engineering and Political Economy projects
- Highly Cited: Professor Da-Wen Sun & Professor Paula Bourke listed amongst 2023’s most influential researchers
- ESTEEM Graduate Programme
- Electrical Engineering Class of 1968
- €257,000 allocated to 24 UCD projects in STEM Challenge Fund
- ERC Starting Grants Awarded to UCD Researchers in Humanities and Engineering
- Prof Niall English receives ERC Advanced Grant to optimise nanobubble technology for diverse end applications
- ERC Proof of Concept Grant for UCD Researcher exploring macromolecular crowding in cell culture systems
- SDG Academy and University College Dublin launch new Master’s Pathway in Foundations of Sustainable Development
- Engineers Ireland Accreditation May 31st 2023
- UCD researcher receives ERC funding to unlock insights into pig-to-human heart transplants
- Biomedical Engineering Innovator Receives 2023 NovaUCD Innovation Champion of the Year Award
- Inventor of Disruptive Biosensors with Industrial Bioprocessing Applications Receives 2023 NovaUCD Invention of the Year Award
- seamlessCARE Receives 2023 NovaUCD Spin-Out of the Year Award
- Prof Francesco Pilla launches new bike libraries for Dublin primary schools
- Launch of WATSON Project at UCD
- UCD's Livija Vasilenkaite - First Prize Winner #ThisIsEngineering2023
- Minister Harris and Commissioner McGuinness announce first recipients under the €65M National Challenge Fund
- Séamus McDermott receives his Honorary Doctorate
- Ten Days in the Ruhr - A Student Engineer's Diary (1952) - The Final Days
- Ten Days in the Ruhr - A Student Engineer's Diary (1952) - Part 3
- Ten Days in the Ruhr - A Student Engineer's Diary (1952) - Part 2
- College researchers recognised in UCD Research Impact Competition
- Ten Days in the Ruhr - A Student Engineer's Diary (1952)
- Arup Scholarship Presentation 2022
- UCD wins Higher Education Partnership of the Year Award at the Asia Matters Business Awards
- Dr Amiya Pandit wins the Thomas Mitchell Medal
- RIBA Stirling Prize 2022
- 2022 News Archive
- 2021 News Archive
- 2020 News Archive
- 2019 News Archive
- 2018 News Archive
- 2017 News Archive
- Accelerate your career with UCD’s Master of Engineering Management
- Irish Academy of Engineering Parsons Medal Winner
- Professor Da-Wen Sun Elected as a Foreign Member of PAN
- PolliNation Takes Top Spot at Sustainability LaunchPad Awards 2017
- Dr Edmond Harty awarded prestigious 2017 Parsons Medal
- Intel continues its commitment to Women in Technology
- 2017 NUI Awards names two UCD Engineering Students
- Professor Da-Wen Sun named as Highly Cited Researcher in the 3rd Year
- Prof John Kelly awarded ESB Outstanding Contribution to Engineering
- UCD Engineering PhD student chosen as Climate Change Ambassador
- UCD Engineer named as IT & Tech Professional of the Year 2017
- Barry Brophy Interview on Tubridy Show with Dave Fanning
- Constructed wetlands: from waste to oasis
- Giant fat blobs, known as fatbergs, are the scourge of London's aging
- How can we make cities better places to live, asks new UCD centre
- The Inchicore Model School: a 21st-century design on education
- Electric-field boost to water flow in protein
- How much traffic can this bridge safely take?
- Technology for all: towards truly inclusive design
- UCD PhD student, Eduardo Morais wins award at conference
- Energy-saving UCD technology breathes life into wastewater treatment
- A fresh look at freezing foods: new technology to preserve nutrients
- UCD honorary degree for Sir Ciarán Devane
- Maintaining the balance of power – through engineering
- Eco-Plan: Upping the game for green spaces in urban planning
- Engineering a smarter treatment for Parkinson’s disease
- 3D printing to revolutionise medical devices
- Smart science to power the Internet of Things
- Getting up close with chemistry
- Former UCD School of Civil Engineering Professor Debra Laefer release
- UCD PhD candidate wins Royal Academy of Engineering early-stage career
- BOC Gases supports research and development in UCD
- Saudi Aramco Takes Stake in UCD Spin out
- Two UCD academics receive a 2017-2018 Fulbright Irish Award
- Grafton Architects receive Architecture award
- Royal Irish Academy elects UCD academics
- Professor Gerry Byrne receives the Fraunhofer Thaler Award
- Dr Edmond Harty appointed as Adjunct Full Professor
- UCD engineers named among Ten Outstanding Young People in Ireland
- Teaching Awards for College Academic Staff
- ENBIO Secures €650,000 Contract with European Space Agency
- Science Foundation Ireland to Invest in 4 New research centres
- Inclusive design to help people with autism & intellectual disability
- UCD professor takes a close look at the chemistry of water
- UCD Engineers receive Outstanding Young People Award
- iSCAPE - Improving the Smart Control of Air Pollution in Europe
- QS Rankings
- UCD Engineering Student announced as winner of the inaugural Engineers
- Dynamic System Modelling Workshop
- Smart CITIES & ENGINEERING for Sustainable Architecture
- Consultation Event on the National Planning Framework
- Seeking to encourage girls in civil engineering
- UCD SBFE Assoc Professor Featured in Irish Times Article
- Stimulating the brain to treat Parkinson’s disease
- UCD SBFE PhD student elected to CIEEM Irish section committee
- UCD SBFE Lecturer contributes to Irish Times article
- Earth’s water may have been formed in its mantle
- Professor David FitzPatrick awarded 23rd RAMI Silver Medal
- UCD SBFE Assoc Prof Aoife Gowen featured in "Women on Walls" Campaign
- Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe features UCD Engineer Colin Keogh
- 2016 News Archive
- Building the State
- A Centenary Celebration
Earth's water may have originally been formed deep within its mantle, study shows
Monday, 27 February, 2017
Earth’s water may have originally been formed by chemical reactions deep within the planet’s mantle, according to research led by University College Dublin.
The new theory offers an alternative explanation as to how the life-giving liquid may have originated on Earth. Previously, scientists have suggested that comets that collided with the planet could have deposited large amounts of ice on the Earth which later melted, forming water.
The investigators carried out computer simulations which found that reactions between high-pressure and high-temperature fluid hydrogen and silicon dioxide in quartz, found in Earth’s upper mantle, can form liquid water under the right conditions.
Pictured top: A new study led by a team of scientists at UCD shows that a reaction between silicon dioxide that is found in quartz crystals (picture) (Photo credit - flickr-jgsgeology) and fluid hydrogen at high temperatures and pressure, found in the earth's upper mantle, can create water; and below, Youtube clip from Beyond Science with details on discovery by scientists in 2014 that vast 'ocean-like' quantities of water are located 600 miles below surface of Earth
The simulations were carried out by Dr Zdenek Futera, UCD School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering, under the direction of Profesor Niall English, UCD School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering, and the Materials, Energy and Water Simulations research group. The team at UCD also worked closely with co-author of the paper, Professor John Tse, University of Saskatchewan in Canada.
The exercise tested the reaction at different temperatures and pressures typically found in the upper mantle 40 to 400km below the surface of the Earth.
The simulations revealed that the silica and fluid hydrogen could form water when exposed to temperatures of just over 1400°C and at pressure 20,000 times higher than Earth’s atmospheric pressure.
Silica is found in abundance above and below the surface of the earth in the form of the mineral quartz – the Earth’s crust is 59 per cent silica.
The scientists had expected that the water would form on the surface of the silica, but instead, they were surprised to find that the water remained trapped inside the silica, leading to a massive build up of pressure.
They also believe the release of this pressure could be responsible for triggering earthquakes hundreds of kilometres below the Earth’s surface.
The new findings support the experiments on the same reaction between silicon dioxide and liquid hydrogen carried out by Japanese scientists in 2014.
"We were initially surprised to see in-rock reactions, but we then realised that we had explained the puzzling mechanism at the base of earlier Japanese experimental work finding water formation,” said Prof English.
“We concluded that these findings help to rationalise, in vivid detail, the in-mantle genesis of water. This is very exciting and in accord with very recent findings of an 'ocean's worth' of water in the Earth's mantle.
"We thank Science Foundation Ireland and our collaborators at the University of Saskatchewan, and the Ireland-Canada Foundation for 'seeding' this 20-paper collaboration with Professor John Tse ten years ago."
The findings were published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
Various studies in recent years have also suggested that vast quantities of water are stored in rocks as far as 1000km below the surface of the Earth.
The paper is entitled: Formation and properties of water from quartz and hydrogen at high pressure and temperature.
By: Jamie Deasy, digital journalist, UCD University Relations.