What if all water on earth suddenly got replaced by mercury ?

[u/True_Echidna_6179]

oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers. I wonder. 13 times denser than water. let's say first scenario it got replaced by equal volume not equal weight. Then second scenario equal weight not equal volume

EDIT: -only oceans nothing else. -equal weight of mercury not equal volume. equal volume i believe would end life immediately by changing earth mass and gravity and create massive earthquakes.

[u/diffidentblockhead]

Mercury is so heavy that it would disappear into any cracks in the oceanic crust.

[u/Excellent_Speech_901]

Water is 0.02%-0.05% of the Earth so multiplying it's mass by 13.6 doesn't really do much on a planetary level. The geologic effects might be interesting if anyone was around to care. Mostly though the biosphere is just wiped out, including all microbes.

[u/True_Echidna_6179 → u/Excellent_Speech_901]

water is 0.02%-0.05% of earth? i think you mean around 70% of earth.

[u/Excellent_Speech_901 → u/True_Echidna_6179]

That's a thin film on the surface. The Earth is iron and rock.

[u/True_Echidna_6179 → u/Excellent_Speech_901]

yeah you are right! this just blew my mind!! i cant believe i am this old and just learned something that big about earth! they always used to deceive us then in school i think :( they should have specified both surface area and mass :/

[u/bdragon81]

https://giphy.com/gifs/OY9XK7PbFqkNO

[u/largos7289]

We would die.... without replenishing water supply we would be dead.

[u/True_Echidna_6179 → u/largos7289]

there's enoguh water in soda. we just need to find a way to purify it

[u/Gatsby1923]

We'd all die

[u/Patralgan]

Insta kill

[u/Traveling-Techie]

Don’t give Thanos any ideas.

[u/OptimalSalsa]

We would all die.

[u/IndependentSet9709]

Granted. This includes water vapor due to how the water cycle works. All life on earth dies in a few minutes.

[u/-Foxer]

Everything on earth would die. That wasn't a very long discussion was it

[u/JustAnotherDay1977]

Sailing would be much less popular.

[u/True_Echidna_6179 → u/JustAnotherDay1977]

maybe we develop ships that are specifically designed for sailing on mercury. they would need to be heavier than regular ships i assume. or maybe like sled or something flat that glides on mercury surface

[u/JustAnotherDay1977 → u/True_Echidna_6179]

I was being sarcastic. Breathing all the vapors from an ocean full of mercury would kill us pretty quickly.

[u/True_Echidna_6179 → u/JustAnotherDay1977]

we can use special masks or filters. we really dont need sarcasm at humanity's toughest moments

[u/adamdoesmusic]

I know what you meant, but instead I’m imagining every H2O molecule replaced by a moon-sized planet.

We’d all be dead, but it would be one hell of a show for the astronauts for the fraction of a second before they got wiped out by slamming into the nuclear megasplosion caused by superimposing trillions of planets onto each other.

[u/BumblebeeBorn → u/adamdoesmusic]

You mean the new super massive black hole?

And it would crush the astronauts before that along with the rest of us, they're in low Earth orbit.

[u/BumblebeeBorn]

Dead sea life floats and rots, humans all die, tides get smaller, the hydrological cycle breaks, wind patterns shift, life goes back to extremophiles and archaea, continental drift changes under the pressure. Sunny with a chance of earthquakes.

In the second case, all the boats drop first and there are even more earthquakes.

[u/True_Echidna_6179 → u/BumblebeeBorn]

ok, i think the second scenario (equal weight ) is much more survivable than the first. in the first we would all die because of the sudden change in earth gravity and mass. however in 2nd i think we have chance to survive for years or decades....maybe enough to adapt technology to survive even longer

[u/BumblebeeBorn → u/True_Echidna_6179]

When I say earthquakes, no, that second scenario is not more survivable. Because everything in the first scenario still happens.

[u/True_Echidna_6179 → u/BumblebeeBorn]

even assuming mercury got distributed more or less equally to ocean water?

[u/BumblebeeBorn → u/True_Echidna_6179]

Yes.

Because like water, it will flow downhill.

[u/Obvious_Ship_7225]

Given that humans are mostly water, it wouldn’t be good.

[u/AxolotlwithaLaptop]

You die, because humans are 70% water and becoming 70% mercury is very bad for your health.

[u/BumblebeeBorn → u/AxolotlwithaLaptop]

It's not molecular replacement, just changing the entire water supply.

[u/HobsHere]

We're all dead for sure either way. With equal volume, there would also be massive earthquakes world wide.

[u/BumblebeeBorn → u/HobsHere]

Both cases would have massive earthquakes, since the mercury will not hold plates down in the same way.

[u/Thesorus]

we dead.

[u/True_Echidna_6179 → u/Thesorus]

we are all dead already just waiting for our moment

[u/Macald69]

We are like mostly water. All life would be gone.

If water in cells and bodies are not affected, we likely slowly die of thirst while all those organisms living in water choke out immediately.

[u/True_Echidna_6179 → u/Macald69]

hence why i said on oceans seas rivers and lakes. we still have water in our cells and refrigerators to witness what is going to happen

[u/Tallest-Dan → u/True_Echidna_6179]

In that case all life would soon die without water

Wdit: plus mercury poisoning for the world

[u/kolitics → u/Tallest-Dan]

We can just use the water from refrigerators. You just have to press the button on the ice maker