"Drilling for fresh water under the salt water off Cape Cod, Expedition 501 extracted thousands of samples from what is now thought to be a massive, hidden aquifer stretching from New Jersey as far north as Maine. The potential is enormous. So are the hurdles of getting the water out and puzzling over who owns it, who uses it and how to extract it without undue harm to nature."
"'We need to look for every possibility we have to find more water for society,' Dugan, a geophysicist and hydrologist at the Colorado School of Mines, told Associated Press journalists who recently spent 12 hours on the drilling platform. The research teams looked in 'one of the last places you would probably look for fresh water on Earth.' They found it, and will be analyzing nearly 50,000 liters (13,209 gallons) of it back in their labs around the world in the coming months."
A massive, hidden freshwater aquifer stretches beneath the shallow seafloor from New Jersey to Maine, discovered by drilling off Cape Cod. A recent global research expedition extracted thousands of samples and collected nearly 50,000 liters for laboratory analysis to determine whether the water originates from glaciers, connected land groundwater, or both. The resource could help meet growing freshwater demand, but extraction faces technical difficulties, legal ownership disputes, ecological risks, and long timelines. Bringing offshore aquifers ashore at scale may take years and may not be feasible in many locations. U.N. projections indicate freshwater demand will outstrip supply in five years.
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