This would be a good place to discuss (1) what 'old' water means; isn't Earth's H2O mainly circulating and, hence, 'old' in the sense that all molecules are? But of course water can react with other elements and likewise result from chemical reactions, so is it that what the mean? (2) How can you just fill a vial with some water and then go and analyze the sample in a mass spectrometer to see what other stuff is in there and then go and claim attested age for that sample without loosing sleep over the question that we can not possibly know all of which might have been going on with that water over the centuries, millennia, millions and, in this case, billions of years? Could I, if you gave me a vial of ultrapure water, fake that result in a well-equipped laboratory or at least write a peer-reviewed paper that details alternative mechanisms plausibly possibly present in geological conditions that would cause the water to attain said properties in a fraction of a billion years?
Sadly none of these questions are addressed in the article.
Sadly none of these questions are addressed in the article.