A research expedition, known as Expedition 501, has found a huge deposit of "secret fresh water" stretching from New Jersey all the way to Maine, after drilling into the seafloor off Cape Cod.

With around a quarter of the world's population lacking access to safe drinking water, the discovery of the hidden aquifer, one of many deposits known to exist across the globe, has highlighted the existence of potentially drinkable water sitting below the seabed.

"Offshore groundwater could serve as a backup source for coastal communities under stress from drought or population growth," Kerry Key, president and geophysicist at Deep Blue Geophysics, a company that applies electromagnetic geophysics to environmental and resource exploration, told Newsweek .

"Globally, these hidden reserves could

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