Scientists have just discovered an ocean at the Earth’s core, challenging our understanding of the universe.

Could there be a huge ocean hidden 700 km beneath our feet? If the discoveries made by teams of scientists in two different parts of the world are anything to go by, this could well be the case. All the more reason to shake up many beliefs about our blue planet on the outside…. And a little on the inside.

An ocean at the centre of the Earth? If this image rings a bell, it’s probably because you’ve read Jules Verne’s novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth, published over 150 years ago. Reality may well be catching up with fiction, since the discoveries made by two teams of scientists in Brazil and Botswana point in the same direction on this subject.

Two discoveries more than 10 years apart

At the heart of this speculation is a very special mineral found in Brazil in 2009 by the team of Dr. Graham Pearson, Director of Diamond Exploration Research at the University of Alberta. Ringwoodite was found in a stone recovered from a depth of between 410 and 660 km below the Earth’s surface. This hydrated mineral had never before been observed in the natural environment: it is a phenomenon that can occur in meteorites, but at the centre of the Earth, no one imagined it.