Like most planets, Earth probably lost some of its atmosphere to space, and the lighter hydrogen would be easier to strip from the planet than its heavier counterpart. If the hydrogen-rich olivine crystals were captured early enough during Earth's formation and remained undisturbed for the planet's 4.5 billionyear lifetime, they could reveal how much the ancient ratios of heavy and normal water shifted, if they changed at all. "Perhaps you still have pockets in the Earth that have preserved this initial hydrogen source", says Zachary Sharp, a researcher at the University of New Mexico who also suspects that Earth's D/H ratio has shifted over time. Green olivine crystals in lava can contain and protect hydrogen collected during Earth's formation, allowing researchers to determine its ratio of deuterium to hydrogen. [Extracted from the article]
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