Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis discovered a splotch of water the size of the Arctic Ocean hundreds of miles beneath eastern Asia.

The water, accordingly, is locked in moisture-containing rocks 700 to 1,400 kilometers (400 to 800 miles) beneath the surface and was found while scanning seismic waves as they passed through the Earth's interior.

This is remarkable. Normally, our planet's heat bakes the water out of the rocks before it even gets more than 100 kilometers deep (60 miles). But along the eastern Pacific Rim, conditions allow the water to get to deeper location before evaporating.

In this case, the water blob is found from Indonesia to the northern tip of Russia. The head of the research team, Michael Wysession, suggests that this could give a clue as to how volcanic regions like Iceland, Hawaii, and Yellowstone National Park were formed. According to Wysession, the presence of water allow hot spots to melt more rock and create more lava.

Stanford University geophysicist Norman Sleep, likewise, believes that water is gradually being sucked back below the surface because the Earth is aging. This, in the long run, may be a good thing for Earth's geological stability as it helps keep the thickness and elevation of the continents stable.