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

Let the mantle come to us...

[UpLateDrinkingCoffee]

Isn't this exactly what a volcano is? Mantle from the edge of the earth's core forming a plume and eventually braking through the earth's surface? I can see the interest in the geology on the way there, but if their goal is the mantle itself, it seems like there's an easier way. Just wondering...

Slashdot is getting terribly slow

[fresh27]

This was covered on SNL's Weekend Update before it was on Slashdot. Sad :(