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."

Comments

Wait a minute...

[darkitecture]

Wait a minute...

Are you trying to tell me that this whole damn time, we've never broken through the earth's crust and seen the mantle for ourselves? We can send something 8.7 billion miles away but we can't drill two miles down? Doesn't this strike people as a bit odd or disconcerting?

Personally I'd like to learn just as much about the earth under my feet as the stars above my head.

I'd like to see this get more funding and see us reach the mantle in the next few weeks instead of waiting for some time in the "coming years."

Re:First they pearce the crust...

[smoketetsu999]

I doubt it, worst case scenario? They create a new volcano. Volcanos usually start underwater and build up in time when it flows and cools into new layers. There are small underwater volcanos all over the ocean.

Re:At what cost?

[MillionthMonkey]

Your tax dollars at work. How much money did this cost?

Here we go again.

In order to avoid these inevitable comments that appear in every thread with a scientific topic, I suggest that no international research project be allowed to proceed unless it has been cleared by a panel of Anonymous Cowards who have been convinced after watching the teevee for too long that all science is really a scam to squander their tax dollars on foolishness like basic research that shows no promise of an immediate economic benefit such as a drug that makes your peepee harder.

In response to your question, you might be able to maintain a botched occupation for a few hours with the money.

Re:Drilling Technology Upgrades Needed

[jaakkeli]

If these guys can drill a hole this deep in a mere three weeks and nearly hit the Earth's mantle, doesn't it seem that it should be possible to directly harness the abundant heat energy in these holes?

So, you drill a hole, put some pipes to bring water there and up. Bringing the heat up will obviously cool the rock that touches your pipe, but as the rock cools, your power production drops. You can only produce energy sustainably if you limit the rate to such that the heat transfer from the rest of the crust is fast enough to balance the cooling. And even if it is really hot down there, the stuff isn't necessarily a good conductor of heat, so this can be a severe limitation to power production. Remember all the nature films where you've seen underwater lava flows: once the stuff starts pouring into water, the surface will solidify quickly, but the inside will be hot for a long time. It's because the water cools the surface fast and the heat doesn't transfer equally quickly to the surface of the rock.