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Hole Drilled to Bottom of Earth's Crust
AtariAmarok writes "A new article is up on LiveScience about a hole drilled into the Earth's crust to explore the layers of our planet's substrate. The hole gets closer to the mantle than any other efforts that have gone before. The hole might reach the "Moho" (division between Earth's brittle outer crust and the hotter, softer mantle) within a few years." From the article: "The depth of the Moho varies. This latest effort, which drilled 4,644 feet (1,416 meters) below the ocean seafloor, appears to have been 1,000 feet off to the side of where it needed to be to pierce the Moho, according to one reading of seismic data used to map the crust's varying thickness."
Good day, gentlemen...as you are no doubt aware, I have drilled a gigangtic hole straight through the Earth's crust. This hole will allow me to usher in a glorious new era of total world domination; for this reason, I have dubbed this latest caper "Operation Glory-Hole".
You see, gentleman, the bottom of this hole is only a scant 1000 feet away from the firey liquid mantle of the Earth itself...when I detonate a small nuclear device at the bottom of this hole, Operation Glory-Hole will create a gigantic super-volcano, radically altering the Earth's climate and laying waste to civilization...that is, unless you pay me...
ONE HUNDRED MILLION BILLION JILLION DOLLARS!!!
Gentleman, you have my demands. Peace out.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Check this baby out, dug me a hole!
--Joey Tribbiani
I for one, welcome our moleman overlords.
So how many turns does it take to get to the center of the Earth? *crunch*
There's no tampon made than could contain the leak that would create.
Bad Scientists! Bad!
+6 energy
WARNING: Significant negative ecological impact
Dante would be proud
And then you come to the caramel lower mantle, then the delicious chocolate core.
music lover since 1969
Like a volcano?
Pfft. I nearly made it from my sandbox to China with nothing but buckets back in my preschool days!
Sometimes you've gotta roll the hard six.
...it says "Bruce Willis woz here".
Jonathanjk.com
Yes, this is exactly what will happen. Just think of it like pricking a hole in a balloon, next thing you know we are 'ppttthhhhhhhhhh' on our way to Jupiter.
Yeah, we're screwed now.
Start working on your lava-boats everyone....
...this Dr. Evil hole is the greatest threat that mad-science presents to us.
What happens if when they finally penetrate the crust the whole planet pops like a balloon?
LIKE A BALLOON!!
Think of all that crazy magma spewing out all over the place and our beloved globe zooming randomly all over the solar system before finally falling flacid and empty to the floor somewhere near Mars.
When will these insane "geologists" learn not to poke holes in our Mother Earth.
-Pinkoir
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Start drilling from the other side NOW...
Would be fun to enjoy the world's largest magnetic seasaw.
Imagine that the Earth is a Pop Tart. The crust is analogous to the frosting on a Straberry Pop Tart. The mantle is much like the delicious gooey interior of the aforementioned Pop Tart. When the Earth's crust is breached, much like a Pop Tart left too long in a toaster, hot magma will shoot miles into the sky in all directions until the fire is extinguished, or all the Earth is consumed. Stop these mad scientists now!
"Our incredibly expensive uber-drill has pierced through to the earth's mantle! Now let's get it home before the magma damages.. oh crap.."
Don't forget the hole's only natural enemy is the pile
- My question is: Can Slashdot be Slashdotted? -
So you say we can make HawaIII this way?
The same way we got the Dakotas. We walked up to the natives and said hey, lets have a treaty...
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Surely they will hear the sounds of hell itself?
http://www.snopes.com/religion/wellhell.htm
"Oblgatory?" "Grammer?" No capitalization at the beginning of your sentence? No punctuation at the end of it?
I guess the Grammar Nazis have adopted the "Do as we say, not as we do" policy.
No...everyone knows we reach China before anything else.
it's nougat, not chocolate core. >:E
Yes, it's unfortunate that the earth is like a big balloon. Oh wait a minute, it's not. Never mind.
How long before Wal-Mart and/or IKEA uses drilling holes through the Earth to reduce supply-chain management costs. I envision, there could be a hole going from China to California and/or Seattle.
How much heat can those RFID tags resist anyways??!
Holy crap - maybe they never thought of that - do you think someone should tell them?
People? Boats? Endless seas of lava? Oh, great. If one person in Hollywood reads that, we're in trouble.
"Now in theaters: The sequel to smash hit Waterworld: Fireworld!"
I wish I had some mod points, I think I just learned more about balloons than I ever thought possible
"Moho" (division between Earth's brittle outer crust and the hotter, softer mantle)
Not to be confused with Soho, NY where the bitchy upper crust and the hot artsy type meet.
Yes, this is exactly what will happen. Just think of it like pricking a hole in a balloon, next thing you know we are 'ppttthhhhhhhhhh' on our way to Jupiter.
That's fine, as long as we don't try to land on Europa.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
I for one welcome our Jupterian overlords.
Nah, those aren't the sounds from hell, that's just CowboyNeal when he was constipated one night. ;)
No. It could be much worse. They could let the air out of the center of the earth, and it might pop. Even worse, it could jet around the solar system in wild arcs, making farting noises while all the other planets laugh and throw half-eaten cupcakes at eachother.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Better watch out! Their experiments might stop the Earth's spin and we'll lose our magnetic fields!!!
The important thing is to drill the hole
on the upper side of the earth because
the lava is to heavy to flow out on this side.
But God help us if they drill a hole on the
lower side, this may empty the earth and
leave us with a fragile shell....
I wonder if hell was pissed about their new skylight?
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The seismic (geophysical) moho is the most common definition (and the one I would use most regularly), but the petrological moho is a valid description as well. I'm informed that it's the
"transition from crustal plagioclase bearing rocks to plagioclase-free olivine and pyroxene rocks".
When you think about it the seismic discontinuity has to be attibutable to some actual physical change in the earth.
I was once on a geological field trip to Cyprus, which has been upthrust a lot, to the point where some old moho is visible at the surface. Having heard this I was hoping for a big outcrop with a nice clear line running through it, so I could stand with a foot on either side of the moho for a picture. Unfortunately it didn't quite look like that.
Not being a geologist I grabbed a few nice looking pieces of rock to take home for paper weights. Alas the cleaning staff at the hotel threw these out, thus stealing my moho. Ah well.
" This reminds me of the urban legend that makes the rounds about scientists drilling into the earth being startled by the sounds of hell emerging from the pipe. Complete with escaping bat or demon emerging from the pipe."
Ah, but that is not an urban legend, it is the storyline of doom IV