Team aims to find ancient fresh water below seabed

A team of geoscientists from Leicester are part of an expedition aiming to discover "ancient" fresh water beneath the Atlantic Ocean floor.

The NSF Expedition 501 will try to provide evidence that fresh water, which could be up to 120,000 years old, exists below the sea floor off the coast of New England in the US.

A group of four scientists from the University of Leicester will join an international crew on the science vessel L/B Robert on 3 May.

The 90-day trip will include tasks such as collecting sediment samples from up to 550m (1,804ft) below the sea floor and learning how and when the fresh water ended up below the seabed.

Speaking to BBC Radio Leicester, Dr Andrew McIntyre, from the school of geography, geology and the environment at the University of Leicester, believes fresh water will be found on the expedition.

"Usually any water below the surface would be sea water, but we now have evidence there is fresh water under the sea bed and we want to figure out how it got there," he said.

"We have some ideas, we think it could be as old as 20,000 to 120,000 years old, so it's really ancient water."

Dr McIntyre said the expedition was part of the International Ocean Drilling Programme.

This is an international marine research collaboration exploring Earth's history and dynamics using ocean research platforms to recover data recorded in seafloor sediments and rocks and to monitor subseafloor environments.

As well as trying to prove fresh water is below the seabed, the team wants to investigate how ice ages may have changed certain seabeds over a timespan of tens to hundreds of thousands of years.

This is Dr McIntyre's third offshore expedition. He added: "This is groundbreaking research to identify some key questions, so I am very much looking forward to sailing on this one."

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