Scientist Tastes 2.6 Billion Year Old Water Deep in Canadian Mine

Ancient Water Discovery Stuns Scientific Community

In 2016, deep within the depths of a Canadian mine nearly three kilometers below the Earth's surface, geologists stumbled upon an unexpected and extraordinary find: a pocket of water believed to be over 2.6 billion years old. The discovery at Ontario's Kidd Creek Mine shattered all previous records, making it the oldest water that had been found on Earth.

The tests pegged the mean age of the samples, extracted from a mine north of Timmins, Ont., in 2009, at 1.6 billion years old—the oldest ever found on Earth. However, at nearly 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) below the surface, they found water that had been sealed away for up to 2.64 billion years, the oldest known water on Earth. The sheer scale of the discovery defied expectations, with "These things are flowing at rates of liters per minute – the volume of the water is much larger than anyone anticipated."

Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar from the University of Toronto led the groundbreaking research, which began with earlier discoveries at the same mine. The geochemist had spent much of her career wandering around some of the deepest mines in the world, finding and extracting water that was millions of years old. The breakthrough came when initial test results seemed impossible, with researchers initially believing their equipment was malfunctioning.

A Bold Scientific Decision

What captured public imagination wasn't just the water's incredible age, but what happened next. While not typical in scientific studies, Sherwood Lollar's decision to taste the water was motivated by a desire to understand its unique properties. "If you're a geologist who works with rocks, you've probably licked a lot of rocks," she told CNN. The tasting served a scientific purpose: She was looking for a salty taste, with saltier water tending to be older.

She noted that she was looking for a salty taste, as saltier water tends to be older, and to her surprise, the ancient liquid was "very salty and bitter," much saltier than seawater. This wasn't a reckless act but rather standard practice for field geologists. Though definitely not safe enough to drink reams and reams of it – Sherwood Lollar pointed out that it was also "scientifically too valuable to waste like that" – the geologist did dip a finger in and stick it on the tip of her tongue.

The extreme saltiness confirmed the water's ancient origins. The saltiness and bitterness of the water confirmed that it had been isolated for an incredibly long time, allowing for the accumulation of minerals and other substances that contributed to its distinct taste. Laboratory analysis revealed the water was 10 times saltier than seawater — is rich in sulfate, a fingerprint of microbial life.

Hidden Life in Earth's Depths

The discovery's most remarkable aspect wasn't the water itself, but what it contained. Tiny chemolithotrophic microbes—an example, as Sherwood Lollar puts it, of life "hanging on by its toenails"—were present in the water and feasting on hydrogen and sulfate. These organisms had survived in complete isolation for billions of years, sustained by chemical energy rather than sunlight.

Researchers discovered that the sulfate found in the water was not modern sulfate that had flowed down from surface waters but rather sulfate produced by a reaction between the water and rock. "What we've found is that the sulfate, like the hydrogen, is actually produced in place by reaction between the water and rock," he said. This process creates a self-sustaining ecosystem that "can persist for as long as the water and rock are in contact, potentially billions of years."

The chemistry that produced the subterranean food resembled mineral-rich hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor that support similar microbial life. But, to this point, nobody had known something similar was happening deep within continents. The implications extend far beyond Earth's boundaries.

Implications for Life Beyond Earth

This ancient water system offers profound insights into the possibility of life elsewhere in the solar system. The undisturbed Shield is now Earth's closest analogue to the subsurface of Mars, which never succumbed to the churning forces of plate tectonics. If water can breed life far beneath Timmins, there's a chance the same is true on the Red Planet.

"Finding life in this energy-rich water is especially exciting if one thinks of Mars, where there might be water of similar age and mineralogy under the surface. If any life once arose on Mars billions of years ago as it did on Earth, then it is likely in the subsurface." The discovery fundamentally changes how scientists view life's distribution on Earth and potentially throughout the universe.

"We no longer think of life on Earth as this smear of biology on the