Geophysicists have found evidence for a large underground reservoir of liquid water—enough to fill oceans on the planet’s surface, using seismic activity.

The Scripps Oceanography scientists estimate that the amount of groundwater could cover the entire planet to a depth of between 1 and 2 kilometers (about a mile), based on data from NASA’s Insight lander.

However, the water is located in tiny cracks and pores in rock in the middle of the Martian crust, between 11.5 and 20 kilometers below the surface, a challenge to reach by drilling.

Water on the planet’s surface

Manga noted that lots of evidence—river channels, deltas and lake deposits, as well as water-altered rock—supports the hypothesis that water once flowed on the planet’s surface more than 3 billion years ago, after Mars lost its atmosphere.

The researchers note that understanding the water situation on Mars will help us get closer to knowing if life exists there. The research appears this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Office of Naval Research supported the work.

Citation: Wright, V., Morzfeld, M., & Manga, M. (2024). Liquid water in the Martian mid-crust. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(35), e2409983121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2409983121 (open access)

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