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Through The Crust, Into the Mantle
Ambitious scientists are planning to drill a hole all the way through Earth's crust and into the mantle; they intend to bring up the first unspoiled samples from this realm beneath our feet.
(The Earth's layers)
Dr Damon Teagle of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, England and Dr Benoit Ildefonse from Montpellier University in France, have announced jointly in an article in Nature that they intend to drill a hole through the Earth’s crust and into the mantle...To retrieve a sample, the drillers would have to rely on drills without a riser (drills that use double pipes for venting gases) which would mean pumping seawater down into the hole through the drill pipe with sufficient pressure to force whatever is being dug back up to the surface so that it can be examined.
Teagle and Ildefonse will begin their search for a suitable site in the Pacific; this will probably be easier than their search for funding.
Deep Storm by Lincoln Child is a recent sfnal novel on the topic of drilling far into the Earth; what's your favorite novel that deals with the interior of the Earth?
Via Physorg; thanks to Thomas Gagnon of Euicho for the tip on this story.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 3/27/2011)
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