Earth is eating its own oceans

[OmegaLogos]

Explanation: @guohua ...

Ok, So just how much water do you think goes under our feet?

The researchers observed such slowdowns deep into the crust, some 18 miles (30 km) below the surface, Cai said.
 Using the measured velocities, along with the known temperatures and pressures found there, the team calculated that the subduction zones pull 3 billion teragrams of water into the crust every million years (a teragram is a billion kilograms).

Three Billion WHAT!? 
Is Al Gore going to start announcing we are Draining our Oceans????
Oh, a they are talking about kilograms, that's not so bad is it?

Seawater is heavy; a cube of this water 1 meter (3.3 feet) long on each side would weigh 1,024 kilograms (2,250 lbs.).
 But still, the amount pulled down by subduction zones is mind-boggling.
 It's also three times as much water as subduction zones were previously estimated to take in, Cai said.

Holy-Shit Batman,,,, That is a Lot Of Water!!!!!!

I did some maths and physics and came up with the following ...



3,000,000,000 teragrams = 3 x 100km^3

1,000,000,000 teragrams = 100km^3

1,000,000 teragrams = 10km^3

1,000 teragrams = 1km^3 (1000m^3 of water = 1 billion tons of water = 1000 teragrams)

100m^3 of water = 1 million tons of water = 1 billion grams = 1 teragram

10m^3 of water = 1,000 tons of water = 1/100th of 1 teragram

1m^3 of water = 1 ton of water = 1/10,000th of 1 teragram

10cm^3 = 1000 grams (1 kilogram , 1 liter, 1000 mls)

1cm^3 = 1 grams (1milliliter)

1mm^3 = 1 microgram (1micromilliliter)

Therefor ...

3,155,760,000 teragrams / 1,000,000 yrs / 365.25 days / 24 hrs / 60 mins / 60 seconds = 3,155,760 teragrams / year = 8.64 teragrams / day
 
= 0.36 teragrams / hr = 0.006 teragrams / min = 0.0001 teragrams / sec
 
1,000,000 tons x 0.0001 teragrams = 100 tons
 
10^2 x 1m^3 = 100 tons of water per second is subducted [eaten] by the earth / along a 50,000+km long subduction zone [total] = 2 kilograms (2 liters) / km  =

= 2 grams  / meter  = 20 micrograms (20 micromilliters) / mm / sec .
 
Imagine a trench 50,000+km long and about 1mm wide and 660km deep, right along where the continental/ oceanic slab is subducting, and that 1mm wide gap
 
allows a 2cm (20mm) tall 1mm^2 thin tower of water to soak/sink/seap/subduct into it per second, for every 1 mm along its entire length, nonstop for 1 million years ...
 
that adds up to 3,000,000,000+ teragrams = 3.? x 100km^3
 
If we take that the ocean is 5km deep on average and that requires {20 x 5km slices of ocean} then 1 slice = 100km x 100km^2 = 100km^3 x 3.? = 60 x 5km
 
slices of the ocean each 100km^2 in area = 800km^2 x 5km deep [64 x 100km^2 slices in 8 x 8 grid] and that takes up this much of the ocean ...
 

 
Here is a map of subduction zones world wide ...
 

 
Here is where I got my information on how long the subduction zones are ...
 
Mapping giant earthquake potential (australiangeographic.com.au)
 

There are 23 active subduction zones around the world. The total length of all subduction zones on Earth is about 50,000km and only about 10 per cent of this total length has produced giant earthquakes in the past 100 years,

 
Here is where I got my guestimate for how deep the ocean is ...
 
Ocean Depth (oceanservice.noaa.gov)
 
I used MSCalculator in scientific mode to do all my calculations.
 
Personal Disclosure: Firstly some music to go with ...
 

 
I hope my maths and my data sources help put this into some kinda of back of the envelope and inside the ball park dimensions.
 
Firstly 1 million years is a very long time and 2ndly 50,000km of subduction zone x 1mm wide is a big area = 225m^2 x 660km deep [aka thats a VERY BIG HOLE in total]
 
Little things add up quickly over long ranges of space and time and I can easily see these figures as being close to accurate!
 
HOWEVER I suck at maths and can be ORDERS of MAGNITUDE out ... so please don't rely on the above maths to do anything with unless you double check my
 
results yourself first.
 
And yet in comparison the 800km^2 x 5km deep ocean patch that is eaten by the earth every million years seems to pale into insignificance when faced with the

great pacific ocean and or even all the rest of the oceans together!!!

How much water on earth? [livescience.com]

If Earth was the size of a basketball, all of its water would fit into a ping pong ball.

How much water is that? It's roughly 326 million cubic miles (1.332 billion cubic kilometers), according to a recent study from the U.S. Geological Survey.

So 3,200,000 cubic kilometers [800 km x 800 km x 5 km] versus 1,332,000,000 cubic kilometers [16,300 km x 16,300km x 5km] = 0.25% (1/400th)

of the total of earths water is subducted over 1 million years.

It is amazing what a 50,000+km long 2cm tall 1mm thick ribbon of water adds up to [100tons] and to think that we are 'losing' that into the

inner earth every second is quite profound and amazing!