Human activity risks contaminating pristine water locked underground for millennia and long thought impervious to pollution, said a study Tuesday that warned of a looming threat to the crucial resource. Even at depths of more than 250 meters under the Earth’s surface, so-called “fossil” groundwater – more than 12,000 years old – has been found to contain traces of present-day rainwater, they said. This suggests that deep wells, believed to bring only unsullied, ancient water to the surface, are “vulnerable to contaminants derived from modern-day land uses,” study co-author Scott Jasechko, of the University of Calgary, told AFP.

Humans threaten crucial 'fossil' groundwater - study. (2017, April 27). Philippine Star, p. B7.