Chapter 1

Origin and Distribution of Water in the

Ecosphere: Water and Prehistoric Life

The Eccentric Liquid

Water is the only inorganic liquid that occurs naturally on earth. It is also
the only chemical compound that occurs naturally in all three physical
states: solid, liquid and vapour. It existed on this planet long before any
form of life evolved but, since life developed in water, the properties of the
‘Universal Solvent’ or ‘Life’s natural habitat’ or ‘Life’s preferred habitat’
came to exert a controlling influence over the many biochemical and
physiological processes that are involved in the maintenance and per-
petuation of living organisms. It is therefore in order to discuss briefly the
occurrence of water on earth, its distribution and its controlling influence
on the development of life.

The Hydrologic Cycle

At present we are left with several puzzles concerning the composition of
the atmosphere and the quantity of water in the hydrosphere. It seems
safe to assume that the presence of water in the liquid state can only date
from a time when the temperature of the earth’s crust had dropped to
below the critical temperature of water, 374 “C.If all the water that now
makes up the oceans had previously existed as a supercritical water
atmosphere, then the pressure per square metre of earth surface would
have been 25MPa. During cooling to below the critical point, vast
masses of water would have condensed onto the earth’s surface and also
penetrated deep into rock crevices. Some of this water would immediately
have boiled off again, to be recondensed at a later time. The hydrologic
evaporation-condensation cycle could thus have begun several billion
years ago. It is therefore irrelevant whether the heat of the earth itself or

1
2 Chapter 1

solar radiation initiated the cycle. What is relevant, however, is the scale
of the water movement. The total water content of the atmosphere is
6 x lo8 ham (1 ham = 10000 m3). This is the amount of water which
will cover an area of 1 ha to a depth of 1 m. Since the total annual
precipitation is 225 x lo8 ham, the water in the atmosphere is turned
over 37 times every year. This level of precipitation is equivalent to a
water depth of 0.5m averaged over the earth’s surface. Such an averaging
is of course meaningless, because the level of precipitation is quite non-
uniform in time and space.
Although the hydrologic cycle, shown in Figure 1.1, is a continuum, its
description usually begins with the oceans which cover 71 YOof the earth’s
surface. The heat of the sun causes water to evaporate. Under the influ-
ence of certain changes in temperature and/or pressure, the moisture
condenses and returns to earth in the form of rain, hail, sleet or snow -
collectively referred to as water of meteoric origin. It falls irregularly with
respect to geographical location, with coastal areas receiving more.
Of the average rainfall, about 70% evaporates; the remainder appears
as liquid water on or below the land surface. Some water evaporates in
the air between the clouds and the land surface. The remaining losses are
of two forms: direct evaporation from wet surfaces and transpiration
through plants from their leaves and stems. The 30% of water not directly
returned to the atmosphere constitutes the runoff and provides our
potentially available freshwater supply. Actually, the proportion of the
earth’s total freshwater resources which participates in the hydrologic
cycle does not exceed 0.003YO; the remainder is locked up in the Antarctic
ice cap. If melted, it would supply all the earth’s rivers for 850 years.
Enormously large quantities of water participate in the cycle, as shown
in Table 1.1. The oceans constitute by far the largest proportion of our
water resources, with the Antarctic ice cap as the major freshwater
reservoir. By comparison, all the other contributions are of a minor
nature.

Available Water and Global Warming

The most important source of readily available, albeit recycled, fresh
water is rain, the distribution of which is quite erratic. As a result of
rainfall and percolation from the water table to the topsoil, the total
volume of moisture in the soil is 25000km3. Plants normally grow on
what is considered to be ‘dry’ land, but this is a misnomer, because even
desert sand contains up to 15% of water. It appears that plant growth
requires extractable water; thus, an ordinary tree withdraws and tran-
spires about 190 1 per day. Groundwater is an increasingly important
Water in the Ecosphere and Prehistoric L f e 3

t
4 Chapter 1

Table 1.1 Distribution and movement of earth's water

resources (km3)
~~~~~~~

Rivers 1200
Topsoil 25 000
Annual runoff 34 000
Lakes 100000
Glaciers 200 000
Fresh groundwater
(1km depth) 4 000 000
Arctic ice cap 3 000 000
Antarctic ice cap 30 000 000
Annual rainfall 2 000 000
Moisture in atmosphere 60 000
Photosynthesis (annual) 100 ( = 1O"tonnes)
Oceans 1 300 000 000

source of fresh water. Indeed, less than 3% of the earth's available fresh
water occurs in streams and lakes, although the proportion is much
higher in the UK. Groundwater hydrology is a relatively young, but
rapidly growing, branch of science and technology, mainly as a result of
the growth of research in botany, agriculture, chemistry, physics and
meteorology.
Now that global warming is believed to cause a major future threat, the
numbers in Table 1.1 assume a particular significance. If the Antarctic ice
cap were to recede and become subject to partial melting, the water so
produced would contribute to a rise in the sea level, in addition to any rise
caused by thermal expansion of the oceans. Unfortunately such water
which is now part of our freshwater resources, albeit locked up, would
become useless for immediate utilisation.

Water and the Development of Life

Studies of the origin of water in the universe and the prehistoric changes
that may have occurred in the composition of our atmosphere and
hydrosphere make fascinating reading. The search for water has become
an important aspect of space exploration. The existence of ice in many
cold stars and meteorites is now firmly established. It is also believed that,
next to hydrogen, oxygenated hydrogen is the most abundant chemical
species in outer space. In principle, wherever ice exists in an extraterres-
trial cold environment, there should also be evidence of water vapour,
since ice has a finite sublimation pressure. Indeed, water vapour has been
detected on our moon, on Mars, and moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
However, during the past decade noncrystalline water has also been
detected in the photosphere of the sun. By comparison with high-
Water in the Ecosphere and Prehistoric Life 5

temperature emission spectra of very hot water, the infrared lines ob-
served in sunspot spectra have been assigned to characteristic rotation
and rotation-vibration transitions involving H,O molecules and OH
radicals. At ca. 3000 K the spectra correspond to approximately equal
concentrations of molecules and radicals.
For any discussion of life on earth it is very important to establish
when, and how, molecular oxygen first made its appearance. Early
prokaryotes had minimal requirements of H, C , N, 0, S and P, with a
further selective management of Na, K, Mg, Ca, Fe, Mo, Se and C1 for
energy regulation and electron transport. There is now little doubt that
there existed enough H,S to provide the reducing environment needed
for the essential reactions with CO, to synthesise organic molecules.
However, the low solubility of H,S did not make it the ideal provider of
hydrogen. Water itself was a much better provider of hydride. Eventually,
with the aid of manganese as catalyst, living systems found the means of
releasing hydride from water, but with a devastating side effect: the
release of molecular oxygen which was the enemy of the reductive cell
chemistry of primitive life. Eventually living organisms came to terms
with oxygen and were able to gain energy from its breakdown:
0, + C/H/N compounds + N, + CO, + energy
Different forms of simple organisms thus came to coexist: some remained
anaerobic, while others made use of oxygen and became photosynthetic,
while yet others became parasitic, using plants and oxygen as energy
sources; they ultimately developed into animals. Free oxygen was pro-
duced by the splitting of water, first by high energy radiation and later
also by photosynthesis. The original earth atmosphere is believed to have
been composed of methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and
water vapour; it had a reducing character. It might also have included
hydrogen and helium. An alternative view is that the present atmosphere
is due more to the degassing of the earth’s interior, e.g. by volcanic
eruptions. Some planets still possess their ‘original’ atmospheres; in this
context the current Galileo space probe exploration of Jupiter and its
atmosphere takes on a special significance. HopefuIly, we shall learn
something about the origin of water in the solar system, and particularly
about the development of our own atmosphere and hydrosphere. Only in
this way will it become possible to relate the properties of water to the
development of life processes on earth.
Carbon dioxide was first produced through the erosion and decompo-
sition of minerals. In the presence of free oxygen a methane-ammonia
atmosphere is unstable, methane being oxidised to water and carbon
dioxide. The generation and consumption of oxygen are finely balanced:
6 Chapter 1

the production through photosynthesis amounts to ca. 6.8 x 10''

mola-l, of which > 99% remains in the atmosphere. Of this, 90% is
required for oxidative reactions that accompany the weathering and
erosion of rocks. Thus only 3 x lo9 mol oxygen remain for an enrich-
ment of the atmosphere. By a combination of the above estimates with
the known extension of plant and animal life on earth it is possible to
sketch the increase of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere to reach its
present value of 23% by weight. This is shown in Figure 1.2; the dramatic
increase in the rate of oxygen production dates from the later Palaeozoic
era, when a rapid growth of plant life took place which was then followed
by a corresponding increase in animal life. Nevertheless, even at that time,
life had already existed for three billion years.

Aerobic and Anaerobic Life Forms

Life began in hot water and was characterised especially by a rich
diversity of algal species. The simplest prokaryotic forms of life can
operate and reproduce with a rudimentary genetic machinery that re-
quires no light. The terrestrial species exist at pH 1; they generate energy
by oxidative reactions and thus they require not only sulfur, but also
atmospheric oxygen. Species that exist in the submarine hot springs, on
the other hand, are generally anaerobic. Apart from an absolute require-
ment for water, they also need variable amounts of CO,, H,, H,S, CO,
CH, and SO:-. The nearest relatives of the hyperthermophiles are less
heat tolerant (ca. 70 "C)and gain their energy by photosynthesis. The line

MolesO, 0,
(wt%)

3.7x 10'' 23.2

3.0x 10''
16
2.0 x 10''
11.4
1.0x 10"

0 0
ca.1.5 x 10' 550 x lo6
Precambrian Palaeozoic

Figure 1.2 Molecular oxygen in the evolving earth's atmosphere

Water in the Ecosphere and Prehistoric L$e 7

of development then leads to the microfungi and eukaryotes, which,

although they exhibit increasing heat sensitivity (50-60 "C), can with-
stand temperatures that are still lethal for even the most primitive ani-
mals. As the earth cooled down, so evolutionary pressures led to the
survival and further development of less heat tolerant organisms. We now
talk of 'ambient temperatures' of the order of 0-40 "C and have reached
the stage in the cooling down process, where scientists are becoming
increasingly interested in the study of psychrophily, because cold has
already become the most widespread and lethal enemy of life on earth.
Recent years have witnessed a growing interest by microbiologists,
molecular biologists and biochemical engineers in extremophilic organ-
isms, mainly directed towards a better understanding of protein stability
under extreme conditions of temperature and pressure. The deep-sea
trenches in the Pacific Ocean are a rich source of a variety of such
microorganisms. Seen from the perspective of these so-called ex-
tremophiles, such a label is surely inappropriate. They would regard their
habitat as the natural physiological environment. They would therefore
classify any form of life that can survive and reproduce in an oxygen-
containing atmosphere at 20 "C as a hyperextremophile!

Impact of the Physical Properties of Water on Terrestrial Ecology

The maintenance of life, as we know it, on this planet depends critically
on an adequate supply of water of an acceptable quality and also on a
well-regulated temperature and humidity environment. The oceans sat-
isfy both these requirements, either directly of indirectly. They constitute
our most important reservoirs of water and energy. They exert a
profound influence on the terrestrial climate and on the levels of precipi-
tation. A simple calculation serves to illustrate this stabilising effect:
The Gulf Stream is 150 km wide and 0.5 km deep and flows at a rate of
1.5km- from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean, north of Norway.
The temperature drop of the water during its passage north is about
20 "C.This temperature drop is equivalent to an energy transfer of about
5 x 1013 kJ km-3, equivalent to the thermal energy generated by the
combustion of 7 million tonnes of coal. The above dimensions, coupled
with the rate of flow of the current provide for a movement of 100 km3 of
water per hour, equivalent therefore to the energy supplied by 175 million
tonnes of coal. All the coal mined in the world in one year would be able
to supply energy at this rate for only 12 h. The warm ocean currents thus
act as vast heat exchangers and are responsible for maintaining a temper-
ate climate over much of the earth's surface. The oceans are able to store
such large amounts of energy by virtue of the large (for a substance with a
8 Chapter 1

molecular weight 18) heat capacity of water, one of its abnormal physical
properties, to be discussed in more detail in several chapters of this book.
Other physical properties of liquid that greatly influence our ecological
environment are the low density of ice relative to that of the liquid, and
the phenomenon of the negative coefficient of expansion of cold water.
Between them, these two properties are responsible for the freezing of
water masses from the surface downwards, with obvious implications for
the survival of aquatic life.