What is water?
Water in religions
In many religions, there are narratives about different forms of water. The largest religious ritual in the world – the Hindu Kumbha mela festival – is a water ritual. Water is also one of the most common religious metaphors, representing as different things as 'knowledge', 'life', 'salvation' and 'time'. for instance , in Christianity water is referred as "life" (In Christianity the term "water of Life" (Greek: ὕδωρ ζωῆς hydōr zōēs) is used in the context of living water, specific references appearing in the Book of Revelation (21:6 and 22:1), as well as the Gospel of John.[1] In these references, the term Water of Life refers to the Holy Spirit.)
Earth's water inventory
While the majority of Earth's surface is covered by oceans, those oceans make up just a small fraction of the mass of the planet. The mass of Earth's oceans is estimated to be 1.37 × 1021 kg, which is 0.023% of the total mass of Earth, 6.0 × 1024 kg. An additional 5.0 × 1020 kg of water is estimated to exist in ice, lakes, rivers, groundwater, and atmospheric water vapor.[20] A significant amount of water is also stored in Earth's crust, mantle, and core. Unlike molecular H2O that is found on the surface, water in the interior exists primarily in hydrated minerals or as trace amounts of hydrogen bonded to oxygen atoms in anhydrous minerals.[21] Hydrated silicates on the surface transport water into the mantle at convergent plate boundaries, where oceanic crust is subducted underneath continental crust. While it is difficult to estimate the total water content of the mantle due to limited samples, approximately three times the mass of the Earth's oceans could be stored there.[21] Similarly, the Earth's core could contain four to five oceans' worth of hydrogen.
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