(ËvÉr bÉl) adj. 1. of or consisting of words: verbal ability. 2. spoken rather than written; oral: verbal communication. 3. concerned with words only, rather than with the ideas, facts, or realities expressed: a purely verbal distinction. 4. corresponding word for word; verbatim: a verbal translation.
Because their hypothesis requires that Earth arose from water-containing materials already present in the inner solar system, it's called the wet-accretion hypothesis. Most of Earth's water has an indigenous origin, says Drake.
The team of researchers, led by Northwestern University geophysicist Steve Jacobsen and University of New Mexico seismologist Brandon Schmandt, has found pockets of magma about 400 miles beneath the Earth's surface â clear signs of the presence of water, though not in its familiar liquid form.