New ice created by squeezing water under the weight of 34,000 elephants

NEW DELHI: The Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) has announced a groundbreaking discovery in water science: the identification of a new crystalline ice phase named Ice XXI.

This marks the 21st known form of ice and was observed for the first time under ultrahigh pressure conditions exceeding 2 gigapascals (GPa) at room temperature, observed at unprecedented microsecond timescales.

2 GPa is an enormous pressure, roughly what’s used to synthesise diamonds in labs or what materials experience deep inside the Earth’s mantle. Analogically, it’s equal to 34,000 elephants standing together on an area of just one square meter.

While ice typically forms by cooling water below 0C, crystallisation depends as much on pressure as temperature.

At room temperature, water press