Drilling to the Center of the Earth

indylaw writes "Japanese scientists are attempting to explore the centre of the Earth." From the article: "Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below. The team wants to retrieve samples from the mantle, six miles down, to learn more about what triggers undersea earthquakes, such as the one off Sumatra that caused the Boxing Day tsunami."

Comments

a new low !

[djhack]

now they don't just skip reading the article before posting , but they don't even read the posts !!!

Re:a new low !

[Anthony]

Check the time stamps. I didn't need to read the article to know that drilling through the oceanic crust is nowhere near the centre of the earth. It would've looked better if I did quote the correct figure instead of the "typical" oceanic crust thickness :-)

Re:a new low !

[noelmarkham]

I even emailed the on duty editor before the article was posted to warn him. I even emailed the on duty editor before the article was posted to warn him.

Re:a new low !

[artakka]

I repeat myself when under stress... I repeat myself when under stress...

Re:a new low !

[iwan-nl]

It's a good thing though, they would open up a gate to hell if they went that deep.

Re:a new low !

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! That's a really great sig you have there! Because you insist, let me point out that the comma is too weak to be used in that context. You should have used a semicolon, or written "It's a good, though. They would..." instead. BTW, congratulations on your correct use of "It's".

Wrong bloody title.

[Anthony]

12-25km through the oceanic crust is *not* the centre of the earth.

Re:Wrong bloody title.

[fullcircleflight]

The title "Drilling TOWARDS the Center of the Earth" would be more appropriate.

Re:Wrong bloody title.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree 100%, the earth is flat.

Re:Wrong bloody title.

[CastrTroy]

I can do that in my back yard with a shovel then. Or if you want to get really anal about using the word drill, then using a ground auger.

Re:Wrong bloody title.

[ShyGuy91284]

I should hope not, 8000 square kilomiters seems to be awfully little land for over 4 billion people to live on.... That's not even taking into account the earth is mostly water....

Re:Wrong bloody title.

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

It Won't work !!!, they are in the wrong city!, they should be drilling in Reikjavik ;-)

Re:Wrong bloody title.

[daeley]

Or if you want to get really anal about using the word drill, then using a ground auger.

That sentence is just wrong on *so* many levels. ;)

Re:Wrong bloody title.

[jdgeorge]

I agree 100%, the earth is flat.

Yes, but as we also know, the earth is round, like a Frisbee(R). So, as with any disc, it is perfectly possible to find the center of the earth by simply finding the midpoint of its diameter. Obviously that is where they plan to drill.

Re:Wrong bloody title.

[rsynnott]

Certainly; they'll fall through and land on the turtle. Serves them right ;)

Re:Wrong bloody title.

[KevinKnSC]

But what about when they drill through the turtle?

Re:Wrong bloody title.

[billdar]

Ah, buy you're a clever one... it's turtles all the way down.

Re:Wrong bloody title.

[rsynnott]

It's turtles all the way down.

Re:Wrong bloody title.

[kosmicki]

The gods might not like you digging up their party house, or do you mean to tunnel into Cori Celesti then dig down?.

OOOoooh.

[Seumas]

Queue the quack television reporters preying on the uneducated public, scaring them to death with the suggested possibility that the planet's super-heated liquified insides might oooze out and destroy the world... OH NOES!

Re:OOOoooh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Queue slashdot's classist nazis calling the public uneducated.

Re:OOOoooh.

[Seumas]

Have you ever actually watched a modern newscast?

Re:OOOoooh.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the extent of your interaction with the unwashed masses? Wow. You're an asshole. This conversation is OVER!

Re:OOOoooh.

[Seumas]

Thanks for classifying yourself as one of those in the uneducated public.

Did I say all the entire public was uneducated? No. I said the "uneducated public". What this means is that, of the entire public, there is a significant group that is uneducated. You can't deny that. This is a lot like saying "the movie-going public". Does that statement mean that the entire public goes to movies? No. It indicates that the person is speaking about that segment of the public which is movie-going.

Now, as you can probably figure out by now, I was not talking about the entire public, but rather the significant percentage of this public which is not educated and will listen to the uneducated/sensational news reports and think the world is going to end. You know - the kind of people who believe in the "new jersey devil" and have faith in the talents of Sylvia Brown and think that Saddam Hussein flew airplanes into the towers.

Re:OOOoooh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you ARE ignorant...

Re:OOOoooh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. The anonotrolls are out in force tonight! All the pimply little shits burning out the frustration of being rejected and spending another friday night alone in the forums on /.

Re:OOOoooh.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're braindead, aren't you? It's obvious he was commenting on the sensational spin of the modern news cast to turn everything into a pending horror. And yes news casts do that and yes it works, which is why they do that to begin with. People buy into it, because they're uneducated and have almost no scientific grounding to reason out the bullshit. You're a huge asshole.

Re:OOOoooh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you ARE a dickhead who resorts to meaningless one-liners when he has absolutely nothing else...

Re:OOOoooh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up, you're all assholes.

Re:OOOoooh.

[Anonymous Coward]

How does it feel to be trollerized into dust, you jerk? Does it hurt?

Re:OOOoooh.

[Anonymous Coward]

It worked in Iraq, it'll work here.

mantle makes you repeat yourself

[_Shorty-dammit]

mantle makes you repeat yourself

Wow, Slashdot outdooing itself...

[dumitrius]

dupe dupe.

This article is very interesting.

[cwmonkey]

This article is very interesting. This article is very interesting.

Re:This article is very interesting.

[Romancer]

This article is very interesting. This article is very interesting... ad infinitum.

Re:This article is very interesting.

[Lurker McLurker]

Mod parent funny, mod parent funny

Re:This article is very interesting.

[WolfDeusEx]

I agree actually. Really is quite intresting.

Best Slashdot Article E.V.E.R.

Re:This article is very interesting.

[bgarcia]

They just decided to get the repost out of the way now by reposting into the same article!

It's ingenious!

Re:This article is very interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, Mr. Howard Hughes.

I suppose you'll want to be shown all the blueprints of their plan to drill into the mantle. I suppose you'll want to be shown all the blueprints of their plan to drill into the mantle. I suppose you'll want to be shown all the blueprints of their plan to drill into the mantle. I suppose you'll want to be shown all the blueprints of their plan to drill into the mantle. I suppose you'll want to be shown all the blueprints of their plan to drill into the mantle.

Re:This article is very interesting.

[sonamchauhan]

> This article is very interesting... ad infinitum.

Slashdot editors repeat articles
On their website, despite 'em
Dupes repeat phrases, which the comments repeat,
And so it threads ad infinitum

Re:This article is very interesting.

[Peter Cooper]

I thought it was rather igneous, myself.

Re:This article is very interesting.

[dangrover]

Professor Lindenbrock, I presume ;)

cause

[Eric Smith]

The team wants to retrieve samples from the mantle, six miles down, to learn more about what triggers undersea earthquakes,

Hopefully they won't discover one of the triggers firsthand.

NOOOOOO!!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

We all know the earth will shrivel up if we drill through the ever so delightful outer mantel.

Intrapost dupe

[virgil_attack]

Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below. Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below.

Don't the editors even read anything before they post a story these days.... Wait a sec, this is Slashdot.

Re:Intrapost dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

The correct word to articulate would've been Slashdot not is

Re:Intrapost dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

No. He has it right.

Re:Intrapost dupe

[virgil_attack]

Fuck yeah I have it right biatch!!!

Madness!

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds awfully risky. I hope Bruce Willis and his team are involved.

Re:Madness!

[rokzy]

that's Aaron Eckhart, not Bruce Willis.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298814/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZn xteD0yMHxsbT01MDB8dHQ9MXxmYj11fHBuPTB8c291cmNlaWQ9 bW96aWxsYS1zZWFyY2h8cT10aGUgY29yZXxodG1sPTF8bm09MQ __;fc=1;ft=21;fm=1

Re:Madness!

[RealmRPGer]

I think he meant Armageddon's drill.

Re:Madness!

[Chris Mattern]

No, it's Dana Andrews.

Chris Mattern

Re:Madness!

[wootest]

Yeah, that way, if it fails, then at least Ben Affleck will be dead. It's a win-win! :)

Re:Madness!

[Artifakt]

Here's the Rotten Tomatoes take on it:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/crack_in_the_world /

Question

[Deltan]

Is the drill tip made of unobtanium?

Re:Question

[An Onerous Coward]

And it's powered by atmospherium!

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

But can it drill through a crowd of hippies?

Re:Question

[strider44]

I actually saw on the TV some time back that those kind of drill bits were made out of mostly naquada now-a-days...

Center of Earth 6 miles down?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely, that's not the center.

Re:Center of Earth 6 miles down?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Earth is apparently "a little over 7,600 miles in diameter", which equates to about 2,400 miles down.

Re:Center of Earth 6 miles down?

[Antony.S]

Haven't you always wondered about the phrase "it's a small world"?

Re:Center of Earth 6 miles down?

[Anonymous Coward]

The fully specified dimension was 6mi+/-2394mi.

Re:Center of Earth 6 miles down?

[rossdee]

In the mathematics that I had at school, the radius is half the diameter, therefore the centre of the earth would be 3,800 miles down.

Re:Center of Earth 6 miles down?

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally, yes. But if they pop a hole in the earth it'll start to deflate, so the radius will shrink.

Sounds interesting.

[senocular]

Sounds interesting. Sounds interesting.

typo?

[PrivateDonut]

"Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below. Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below." Anyways, what happens when it gets crushed by the huge weight of the ground above it, and how are they going to keep it transmitting data, through the mantel, and in the magma.

Re:typo?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, those kind of details are better kept off the public, so people would not try it at home and risk themselves.

Re:typo?

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe because the ship never goes underground and just floats on the water with a pipe drill under it?

Re:typo?

[David Horn]

Yeah, the keys are really close together. Anyone could make that mistake.

Re:typo?

[Riktopher]

Speaking of typos, Since when does one "Launched next month". I wish I had that time shifting ability. I'd reverse it so I can pay my bills last month.

Gosh...

[fullcircleflight]

I hope they consult Hilary Swank or other well-known Hollywood "terranauts" before they commence all this.

Re:Gosh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah maybe one of them will volunteer to drive it... Great publicity =D

Energy

[Mattygfunk1]

Could it be viable to turn the molten into powerful energy source after that? Anyone?

__
Funny Adult Videos

Re:Energy

[cjellibebi]

If we harnesed the energy of the Earth's centre, we'd risk cooling the Earth to such a degree that the core would solidify, and this would cause the magnetic field to shut down and we'd be bombarded by solar radiation. On the plus side, a cooler core would put an end to all those pesky earthquakes and volcanoes.

Re:Energy

[ozmanjusri]

Could it be viable to turn the molten into powerful energy source after that? Anyone?

Hot dry rock (HDR) is looking like an interesting clean power source, but in most places its just too deep. The average thermal gradient is 25 to 30 oC/km, so you'd have to drill several kilometres to get useful heat, and at the moment that's too expensive. For those areas with a steep gradient, or if deep drilling gets cheaper, it might be a better long-term prospect than nuclear or solar energy. http://www.seav.vic.gov.au/renewable_energy/resour ces/geothermal.asp

Re:Energy

[Vellmont]

It's not molten rock in the upper mantle. The article itself says the temperature only gets to about 100 C. Considering how long it takes to get down so far, and the remote location (middle of the pacific ocean) I doubt getting energy from a small hole would be very practical.

Re:Energy

[Anonymous Coward]

If we harnesed the energy of the Earth's centre, we'd risk cooling the Earth to such a degree that the core would solidify, and this would cause the magnetic field to shut down and we'd be bombarded by solar radiation.

And if we harness the power of the Sun then we'll cool it down until it collapses into a Red Dwarf!

Meanwhile, back in reality, we're tiny insignificant nothings compared to the Earth. We're really not going to cool it down even if we tried.

Re:Energy

[at_18]

we'd risk cooling the Earth to such a degree that the core would solidify

Bullshit. Volcanoes cool the Earth mantle much more than anything we might come up to.

Re:Energy

[Detritus]

The Earth is big. Really big. We're talking about a volume of roughly 1E21 m^3. That's a cube of over 5 km per side for every person on the Earth.

Re:Energy

[shaitand]

Don't you think it might be a stretch to claim that permenently leeching energy from the Earths core environmentally safe?

If we run out of oil, we are just out of oil. If we burn up everything, we just have dirty air. If we spill it all out into the ocean, we have some dirty water. If we drain a substantial amount of energy from the Earths core (stop thinking shortterm, if we start it is possible that we will be leeching juice for hundreds of thousands of years into the future) we destroy all life on Earth.

Re:Energy

[TapeCutter]

Interesting sig, does that mean you are a pro-gun activist? :)

Re:Energy

[1u3hr]

if we drain a substantial amount of energy from the Earths core (stop thinking shortterm, if we start it is possible that we will be leeching juice for hundreds of thousands of years into the future) we destroy all life on Earth.

Why don't you back that up with somne figures? I can't be botherd to spend the time to refute it, but my feeling is that you could "drain" all the energy we could feasibly use for millions of years with negligible effect. Much less effect than fossil fuels certainly. Actually, if we survive a century or two at most we'll have something better like fusion.

Re:Energy

[coopex]

I would like my cube to be made of precious metals, diamonds, and Natalie Portman Naked and Petrified.

Re:Energy

[coopex]

Specific heat of Nickel/Iron 440j/(kg-K)
Temp ~6000K
Density of Iron 7800kg/m^3, Nickel 8900km/m^3
Diameter of outer core ~5000km
Mass of core = 5*10^24 kg, less than the mass of earth = 5.97*10^24
Heat content of core = 12*10^33 J, which combined with this data of 12 trillion kwh electricity usage/year = 43*10^18 J/year gives us over a billion years to drain it 1%, well past the life of our planet.

Re:Energy

[Detritus]

All we have left is basalt.

Re:Energy

[Alranor]

The Earth is big. Really big.

You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to the earth.

Re:Energy

[fbjon]

Bah. When we have a huge turbine on top of every volcano, then we can talk about geothermal energy.

wow, the editors must be tired

[Pinefresh]

is there a sentence repeated in there?? note to self, if I want to get a story on /. submit it at midnight or later.

oh noes!!!!11

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia the mantle takes samples of you.

Article

[Andreas(R)]

Something strange about the recursiveness of the article text:

Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below. Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below. Using a giant drill ship....

RTFA.

Re: Article

[Black Parrot]

> Something strange about the recursiveness of the article text

That's nothing - wait 'til you see what the dupe looks like!

Re:Article

[Ralph Wiggam]

In order to more efficiently bring you duplicate articles, Slashdot has started listing the article text twice in a row.

Either that or the text was written by Johnny Two Times, they called him that becaue he said everything two times. "I'm gonna get the papers, get the papers." I watched Goodfellas tonight.

-B

Re:Article

[Mike Markley]

It's not recursive, just repetitive.

Re:Article

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not recursive, just repetitive!

Re:Article

[lyoz]

Badboy. Forgot to inc loopvariable

Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below. Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the second to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below. Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the third to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below. ....

Re: Article

[Soul-Burn666]

> Something strange about the recursiveness of the article text

That's nothing - wait 'til you see what the dupe looks like!

Wow

[Buster Chan]

This mission so obviously MUST be done, because this type of exploration, sparks imagination to inspire more than dreams, among Archaeologists, Paleontologists, Biologists, Ahthropologists, Geologists, even a whole bunch of -ists which begin with exo- ... and writers, astronomers, ladies, gentlemen, men, women, children ... explorers of all sorts. News like this is why I read Slashdot. Wow.

Re:Wow

[poopdeville]

Too bad Shredder already patented this. Maybe Master Splinter can license the technology.

Re:Wow

[Buster Chan]

You raise an interesting point. I can take that further by proposing the theory that they might uncover an ancient martian Technodrome.

Re:Wow

[cranos]

[Begin TMNT Geek Mode]
Aaaaarrrggghh that cartoon so sucked dead dogs testicles. Completely fucked with the original comics.
[End TMNT Geek Mode]

the core..?

[joper90]

if 'the core'was anything to go by... then this will be rubbish.. except they may find giant diamonds..

The CORE II

[10101001011]

The team will feature a lovely (if a little dazed) Hilary Swank as Major Beck Childs and Aaron Eckhart will be reprising his role as Dr. Josh Keyes. There will also be a host of other two-dimensional, transparent chaaracters who must get to the centre of the world to "jump start the Earth's core".

Coming Summer 2005!

Re:The CORE II

[Anonymous Coward]

This project may require a large amount of Hot Pockets and Xena tapes.

Re:The CORE II

[kbrosnan]

"The Core is a marvel. It has everything: common physics misconceptions, blatant misrepresentations of physical laws, a complete range of stereotypes, ridiculous feats of engineering, and pure fabrication of scientific "facts". The weighty or sad parts are so inane, they made us laugh out loud. The dialog, plot, and action are predictable, if not outright tedious. Yet, the bad physics provide nonstop surprises. It's the worst physics movie we've ever viewed. It's so bad, it's almost entertaining..."

http://intuitor.com/moviephysics/core.html

Zonk is zonked out

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, this is the worst Slashdot story ever. OK, one of the worst.

Hot mantle

[cjellibebi]

Apparently, the Earth's core is hotter than the surface of the Sun, so if ever they drilled down to the core, it would heat up the planet. While the upper-mantle is nowhere near as hot as the core, is there some risk that the air at the bottom of the hole will be heated by convection, and then rise up forcing more cold air downwasds? The solid crust not only prevents such convection events, but is also a poor thermal conductor. If this does happen, could this contribute significantly to Global Warming, or worse?

Re:Hot mantle

[shawb]

I really doubt a tiny hole drilled by people through the crust to the mantle would cause much widespread environmental harm. Magma is very often vented to the surface in the form of volcanoes. This should be insignificant compared to the sum total of heat and greenhouse gasses released to the atmospher by natural processes

Re:Hot mantle

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

What air at the bottom? They're drilling into the seabed, ala The Core.

Re:Hot mantle

[gl4ss]

well, it's simple really what happens.

earth will crack into two pieces and fall into the sun, from drilling one hole.

Re:Hot mantle

[juhaz]

Apparently, the Earth's core is hotter than the surface of the Sun, so if ever they drilled down to the core, it would heat up the planet.

It wouldn't have time to "heat up the planet (surface)", even if it was significant, which it isn't, since volcanoes already do the same job on much larger scale. Any such drill hole that isn't actively kept open would instantly close either because pressure pushed the rock walls together, or if they go deep enough, magma would go up, cool, and form a cork.

The solid crust not only prevents such convection events, but is also a poor thermal conductor.

There's a reason the solid crust is where it is, just drilling a small hole in it doesn't cause a permanent dent in it.

Re:Hot mantle

[saskboy]

So if you drilled down through 3 meter ice, you'd end up cooling the planet down with the super cool water that would gyser out? Try and see what happens to the water, not much difference with the magma, although the added pressure will shoot it out a bit first.

Historical note

[Black Parrot]

Read up on Project Mohole.

That's nice except...

[centipetalforce]

The mantle IS NOWHERE NEAR the center of the earth. More /. titling sensationalism. Still, drilling even 6 miles down is quite a feat

Re:That's nice except...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to blame Slashdot too, but it's the David Adam at the Gurdian that's the responsible for this sensational moronism. Of course the editors at Slashdot could filter out sensational stupidity, but they don't.

Re:That's nice except...

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, you're right, the mantle isn't anywhere near the center of the earth, but if you had bothered to RTFA for even a second you have realized that it the has nothing to do with the /. editors, because it's the title of the article .

Re:That's nice except...

[LurkerXXX]

The would require the 'editors' to actually read the article. Or even the blurb that's posted. Not going to happen.

Re:That's nice except...

[Captain Nitpick]

Still, drilling even 6 miles down is quite a feat

According to this 2000 World Oil article Google turned up, the current US record for true vertical depth in oil and gas exploration is 26,536 feet, or just over five miles (8 km).

Impressive, yes. But seeing as the record was set in 1977, I'd expect getting to six miles isn't going to tax current technology as much as people seem to think.

Hopefully they will be...

[Anonymous Coward]

...watching out for liquid-hot magma .

Umm.

[jasperbg]

Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below. Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below.

Re:Umm.

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a Austin Powers reference you clod.

if i were you

[Anonymous Coward]

i wouldn't go around telling people i saw "The Core."

Re:if i were you

[caryw]

I mean it wasn't terrific but I didn't think it was terrible. Plus I like movies where messed up stuff actually happens instead of just people saving it from happening.
--
Fairfax County forums and chat

Mystery Solved!

[Dharma's Dad]

So that explains the big hole in my backyard with the Asian dudes in lab coats peeking out of it....

Re:Mystery Solved!

[NightRain]

They need a giant drill ship to reach your backyard? Where on earth do you live?

Re:Mystery Solved!

[aerthling]

Where on earth do you live?

Don't you mean, where in Earth?

Re:Mystery Solved!

[NightRain]

Well no. The end of the hole is "in" the earth somewhere, but presumably the ship itself isn't :)

Cover for something far more sinister.

[Spacejock]

Right, so this japanese ship is heading out to sea with large metal poles on board. Think they want to punch holes in the sea bed? Nah, they're aiming to blow holes in something else.

Similar /. Story in April

[Quirk]

Slashdot story Sunday 10 April 2005.

Naquadah?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they'll find some naquadah down there?

Re:Naquadah?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they'll find some naquadah down there?

Pfft. Naquadah doesn't occur naturally in the Solar system.

Re:Similar /. Story in April

[jfern]

Zonk worded it a bit better the other time.

Come on!

[PhunkySchtuff]

Seriously, if you are going to cut and paste the first paragraph of the target story as your submission, at least get it right and don't have the first sentence pasted in twice.

Re:Come on!

[danielrose]

Perhaps they intend to drill through the crust twice? Or... the poster/editors are morons :)

Re:How interesting...

[rokzy]

it's not so funny when not only have 10 other people made the joke before you, but you also *explain* it.

UBER-DUPE

[HeliumHigh]

Posted by Zonk on Saturday June 04, @02:45AM from the watch-out-for-the-lavamen dept. indylaw writes "Japanese scientists are attempting to explore the centre of the Earth." From the article: "Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below. Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below. The team wants to retrieve samples from the mantle, six miles down, to learn more about what triggers undersea earthquakes, such as the one off Sumatra that caused the Boxing Day tsunami." Yes, I qouted the article. I wanted you to read it/read it again (for the few that RFTA). Notice the double line? I copy pasteth this: "Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below. Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below." Its the same line repeated! We have reached a new high! A DUPE INSIDE OF AN ARTICLE!

Let's leave it alone

[venicebeach]

the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet

I don't know how Mother Earth is going to like this one.

The thing is over 4 billion years old - is it really a good idea to start punching holes in it now?

Re:Let's leave it alone

[juhaz]

I don't know how Mother Earth is going to like this one.

Yes, that's the problem, you don't know. It's generally good idea to think about perhaps gaining the knowledge before you open your mouth and start gabbling nonsense.

She's not going to like it one way or another, she won't even notice. We're talking about 7.5km hole (that's also very small width-vise) in a planet with radius of almost 6400km, that's just about 0.1% way down to the core.

The thing is over 4 billion years old - is it really a good idea to start punching holes in it now?

The thing is indeed over 4 billion years old. That should tell you something about how much she can handle, think this is the first time she feels a pinprick? Are you aware of the theory explaining how Moon got there? Earth once collided with Mars-sized object and survived. Oh, and guess what volcanoes are, much larger channels going much deeper.

Re:Let's leave it alone

[venicebeach]

Yes, that's the problem, you don't know

Isn't not knowing better than presuming to know?

The thing is indeed over 4 billion years old. That should tell you something about how much she can handle,

That is a good point.

think this is the first time she feels a pinprick?

No, but apparently we haven't done it before ("the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet"). Yes, there have probably been huge objects hitting the planet in the past, volcanic eruptions, etc., but some of these events may have also caused mass extinctions. I guess I am more worried about us than about the planet!

Re:Let's leave it alone

[juhaz]

Isn't not knowing better than presuming to know?

Sometimes, but usually not. We'd still be living in caves if we would have erred on the side of caution everytime there is a very, very slight chance something _might_ have bad consequences.

Yes, there have probably been huge objects hitting the planet in the past, volcanic eruptions, etc., but some of these events may have also caused mass extinctions.

True, but the events that have done so have also been _BIG_, not just someone pushing pipe few meters wide deeper than before.

I guess I am more worried about us than about the planet!

That's a good point, we're still much more fragile than the planet. Global warming etc, for example don't do anything to the planet, or, on the long term, much at all to nature, but if things go awry enough we're not around to see it when they finally recover.

But it's still not particularly wise to not do something just because it hasn't been done before either, unless there's very good reason to believe something bad will happen.

Dupe much? Dupe much?

[vyrus128]

Slashdot: reaching new heights in intra-story dupes. Slashdot: reaching new heights in intra-story dupes.

Begin project Vulcan!

[concreationist]

1. Build giant probe to drill to the center of the earth
2. Arm the probe with nuclear weapons
3. Hold the world hostage for... ONE MILLION DOLLARS
4. Profit!

Re:Begin project Vulcan!

[sosume]

Wait a minute. Don't forget the sharks with the friggin lasers attached to their heads ..

Re:Begin project Vulcan!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hold the world hostage for... ONE MILLION DOLLARS

So that's about 3 euros?

Re:Begin project Vulcan!

[Stankatz]

Do you actually expect them to pay!

Re:Begin project Vulcan!

[OoPStriggerman187]

haha sound like another aston power movie

Re:Begin project Vulcan!

[byteherder]

1. Build giant probe to drill to the center of the earth
2. Arm the probe with nuclear weapons
3. Hold the world hostage for... ONE MILLION DOLLARS

3. Hold the world hostage for... ONE MILLION YEN

Hey these are the Japanese.

4. Profit!

Finally...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now they'll see that the earth is hollow!!!

hmm

[jotux]

didn't I already see this movie?

I hear...

[AyeRoxor!]

Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below. Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below. The team wants to retrieve samples from the mantle, six miles down, to learn more about what triggers undersea earthquakes, such as the one off Sumatra that caused the Boxing Day tsunami.

I hear that the team wants to retrieve samples from the mantle, six miles down, to learn more about what triggers undersea earthquakes, such as the one off Sumatra that caused the Boxing Day tsunami.

Don't know if that was mentioned...

I think she is old enough

[Anonymous Coward]

To get a few piercings. Something tasteful, you know.

what is "mysterious future" for?

[joodas]

i don't get the point of mysterious future slashdot's feature available for subscribers. does anybody check that mail account just before publishing the article for real? i bet there must have been at least five posts about the repetition...

Pfffff...

[alexhs]

If they're piercing the crust, will earth deflate ? :)

Re:Pfffff...

[stuffman64]

Yes, the same way the earth deflates every time a volcano erupts...

Re:Pfffff...

[mattyrobinson69]

if they dont put scelotape over the target before they pierce it, it might explode.

Edge of mantle != center of the earth

[surfcow]

Edge of mantle != center of the earth. Mantle = ~3000 km, outer core = ~ 5000 km, inner core = ~5000 km.

Reaching the mantle is very impressive. Just keep it in perspective.

Re:Edge of mantle != center of the earth

[Anonymous Coward]

measuring from a surface? wouldn't it be more convenient to measure from the center?

Ship?

[capnez]

Why would they use a ship? I would think an on-shore platform would be more stable if you want to drill that far down. But then again, the earth in Japan is moving every now and then, so it's probably safer anyway...

Re:Ship?

[Anonymous Coward]

From The Fucking Article:
After final sea trials this year, the scientists will set sail for the deep Pacific where the Earth's crust is thinnest. Drilling is expected to begin next year.

Re:Ship?

[Teun]

Even though the story is a repeat of one a few months old and it's lacking substance I'll give a hint:

The earth's crust is thinnest below some oceans and hence there it's easyer to drill into the hotter areas.

But that's aswell where the problem for this project lies, the extreme temperatures can and will melt the drill bit unless these guys have some new and very smart technology.

How inspiring.

[Rhinobird]

From TFA:
Previously undiscovered bacteria that can survive the anticipated 100C temperatures of the upper mantle could be useful on the surface. Heatproof enzymes isolated from bugs brought back by earlier Japanese drill missions are now used in washing powders.

WOW! Just imagine the kinds of laundry detergent we could make with super heat resistant bacterial enzymes. WOW! Just imagine the kinds of laundry detergent we could make with super heat resistant bacterial enzymes.

to learn more about what triggers earthquakes..

[slashmojo]

to learn more about what triggers undersea earthquakes

Drilling to the center of the earth

nuff said.. ;)

From "A short history of nearly Everything"

[hendrix69]

Written by Bill Bryson.

About the earth's layers (p216): "... the various layers, using average figures:
From 0 to 40 km (25 mi) is the crust.
From 40 to 400 (250 mi) is the upper mantle.
From 400 to 650 (400 mi) is a transition zone between the upper and lower mantle.
From 650 to 2,700 km (1,700 mi) is the lower mantle.
From 2,700 to 2,890 (1,900 mi) is the "D" layer.
From 2,890 to 5,150 km (3,200 mi) is the outer core,
and from 5,150 to 6,378 km (3,967 mi) is the inner core."

About an attempt to drill the "Mohole" during the 60's (p214)
"Drilling from a ship in open waters is, in the words of one oceanographer, 'like trying to drill a hole in the sidewalks of New York from atop the Empire State Building using a strand of spaghetti.'"

A very cool book.

Re:From "A short history of nearly Everything"

[Anonymous Coward]

Just curious!!

How do they know how many layers the earth is made up of?

Is it just an estimated guess?
Or did they cut a chunk out of the world while I was sleeping to have a look?

Re:From "A short history of nearly Everything"

[m50d]

A lot of the evidence comes from earthquakes. There are seismometers all over the world, so when an earthquake happens we see the results everywhere. There are two types of waves, P and S, and S waves can't travel through liquids, which show us the size of the molten outer core (you get a "shadow" on the other side of the world where you don't get any S waves). For the rest of the layers, diffraction because of differing densities changes the time taken for the waves to reach different locations, telling us how dense various layers are so we can have a pretty good guess at what they're made of.

Re:From "A short history of nearly Everything"

[hendrix69]

The books answers just this kind of questions. Like, how do we know how much the earth weighs? How was its size determined?

Damn outsourcing

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is just a sign that editting /. has been outsourced to India. These dupes only happen at 4 or 5 AM EST, so that must be the case. I'm sure it's a new Indian approving the post each time so there's no continuity about what has already been posted.

That's my theory about the early morning dupe.

- nolan
http://nolan.eakins.net/

Re:How interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

idiot - go kill yourself.

They will find great HEAT

[bogaboga]

Too much heat is what they will find, among other supprises. Now, I hope they will be able to devise a means of harnessing this heat to generate electricity. I guess folks from Iceland are just near this heat and this is why they rely so much on geo-thermal electric generation.

perhaps...

[nEoN nOoDlE]

Perhaps people drilling to the center of the earth is what's causing the tsunamis... Oh the tragic irony that would be!!

Re:perhaps...

[Elminst]

no, no...
It was the people on the inside drilling out to see what's there!

Wait, you mean the earth isn't a Dyson Sphere?

Similar projects

[Flamerule]

There have been a number of other projects to drill deep into the Earth's crust, though none has succeeded in reaching the mantle, as this Japanese team is trying to do. Some of the more well-known ones:

Another poster already provided the wikipedia page for Project Mohole. That was a US team back in 1961 that managed to drill to 183 m below the sea floor, in 3500 m of water off the Mexican coast. From a ship, floating on the ocean surface -- I just find that incredible.

As far as land-based projects go, there have been 2 big ones that I know of. The Kola Superdeep Borehole was a Russian project, started in 1970, that drilled at a site on the Kola Peninsula near Finland. Their deepest hole reached 12.262 km in depth, which is the current record. This page has a section (scroll down a few screens) with some very interesting findings from the project. Apparently, geologic theory doesn't quite correspond with what we find when we actually go down there to see for ourselves.

There's also the KTB (long German acronym) Borehole, started in 1978 in Bavaria. They reached a depth of 9.101 km. Information on this one is hard to find, at least in English, though there is a great Oilfield Review article (big pdf) available.

This Japanese project is going to drill through the sea floor in the Pacific, in a spot where the crust is thin, which will hopefully allow them to reach the mantle in only 7 km, under 2.5 km of water. For comparison: the previous record seafloor drill was only 2.1 km. So they've definitely got their work cut out for them.

Re:Similar projects

[Anonymous Coward]

This page has a section (scroll down a few screens) with some very interesting findings from the project. Apparently, geologic theory doesn't quite correspond with what we find when we actually go down there to see for ourselves.

good lord, hollow earth you say... massive cover up?!
wow. . .
I'd love that kind of thing to be true but I think that the best line on that whole site is

" Paul LaViolette argues that the cores of both planets and stars produce what he calls 'genic energy', because they are supercritical regions of space where photons draw energy from the underlying ether. He argues that 15% of the sun's energy could be supplied by genic energy, while the rest comes from nuclear fusion"

or how about
"instead of condensing out of molten physical matter our globe has crystallized out of a more ethereal state of matter, described as 'fiery, cool and radiant'. "

or even better
" Biologist Louis Kervran and a number of other researchers have demonstrated that, in plants, animals, humans, and even minerals, common elements can be transmuted into heavier or lighter elements without the need for extremely high temperatures and pressures [30]. These transmutations are often reversible, and most involve hydrogen, which has 1 proton (1H), or oxygen, which has 8 (8O)."

I'd love to see this be reality... it would be so cool. but sadly it's not the case ... Maybe I'm over sensitive and the site is just trying to give both sides a run for their money... I know that scientists can be a little stuck in their ways but some of the people qouted in that were just nuts, now many of them were put forward as such, the guy who thought that there was a 4000mile wide hole connecting the outer surface of the earth with the inner surface for example. but then they seemed to be ok with more modern hollow earth stuff.

Re:Similar projects

[Anonymous Coward]

They did turn up a number of really bizarre theories in that article, but I think when the article quotes someone as saying "how far from truth scientific theory can roam" you can expect the bizarre cases to pop up ;)

Re:Similar projects

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude! Alchemy is real! Now we just need to find a way to require that transmutations require a circle.

(gotta have the circle)

Re:Similar projects

[nbert]

Information on this one is hard to find, at least in English, though there is a great Oilfield Review article (big pdf) available.

This appears to be their official site: http://www.icdp-online.de/sites/ktb/

Re:Similar projects

[urbaer]

There have been a number of other projects to drill deep into the Earth's crust, though none has succeeded in reaching the mantle, as this Japanese team is trying to do. Ah... But that's because none of them had Mr Driller on thier side.

Re:Similar projects

[bill_mcgonigle]

the previous record seafloor drill was only 2.1 km. So they've definitely got their work cut out for them.

Hmm.. you'd think the seawater would provide good cooling for the drill and make it easier than doing so on land. Well, you'd think that if you knew nothing about drilling, anyway.

Re:Similar projects

[Captain Nitpick]

That was a US team back in 1961 that managed to drill to 183 m below the sea floor, in 3500 m of water off the Mexican coast. From a ship, floating on the ocean surface -- I just find that incredible.

And here we are 44 years later, and that sort of drilling is just the first step in routine operations of the offshore oil natural gas industry. Granted, they don't start in water quite that deep, the current record for oil and gas exploration apparently being 3,051m. The boat that set the record has a stated maximum drill depth of 10,668 m.

Re:Similar projects

[mikefe]

I didn't know a circle had five points to it...

Re:How interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a little late, dipshit. About a million other people have already commented on it.

Where are my mod points when I need 'em?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was like.. funny :)

They really seem to be working on streamlining the reposting process. The next post may look something like this:

"Uussiinngg aa ggiiaanntt ddrriill sshhipp llaauunncchheedd nneexxtt mmoonntthh, tthhee rreesseaarrcchheerrrss aaiimm ttoo bbee tthhee ffiirrsstt ttoo ppuunncchh aa hhoollee..."

Soon they will perfect both instances occupying the same space, resulting an a repost singularity.

Racist pighead

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, yes, you just couldn't let it slip now could you? Of course you'd have to start bashing India and Indians as if we're to blame that you got fired from your job. We work harder and for less than you and your pasty white ass kind of folk. Ever thought about not asking so much in salary, eh? Maybe you'd still have your job if you'd conformed to the current market situation?

Godzilla!!

[Skiron]

I hope they don't wake up some million year old creature that then terrorises Tokyo and makes all the girls scream!

Re:Godzilla!!

[Anonymous Coward]

ron jeremey?

Re:Godzilla!!

[Devar]

You may not, but I do!

Think of all the screaming girls we could save!

Re:Godzilla!!

[Anonymous Meoward]

Relax, dude. All we need to do is find Kenny.

<VOICE=crow_t_robot>
kennyisthedevilkennyisthedev ilkennyisthedevilkennyisthedevil
</VOICE>

Re:Godzilla!!

[frobisch]

Or find giant caves filled with LCL, so we can move forward with our giant mecha research (and humanity).

Re:How interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit, Captain Obvious. Your obviousmobile is leaking fuel allover the place.

Hell

[Anonymous Coward]

Will they find HELL ? Bet now @ Hell Casino Inc !!!

Yes - 2.50
No - 1.20

Great odds, fast payouts. We accept Visa, Mastercard, Souls etc.

Regards,

Sathan LLeh
Director, Hell Casino Inc.

NEWS FLASH: English is ambiguous.

[BJH]

It's the "centre" in the same way that the "centre" of an M&M is a peanut.

Re:NEWS FLASH: English is ambiguous.

[Fussen]

Hold on.. I've taken a drill to an M&M before, and the thing blasted apart with the majority of it wedged into the drill bit.

So if the Earth suddenly shatters to pieces.. we can blame Japan?

Re:NEWS FLASH: English is ambiguous.

[DustMagnet]

It's the "centre" in the same way that the "centre" of an M&M is a peanut.

English is ambiguous, but they are only going through the candy shell to grab a little chocolate. They aren't getting anywhere near the peanut or the center of the earth.

Re:NEWS FLASH: English is ambiguous.

[shaitand]

No, it's the CENTER in the same way that the chocolate layer of a peanut filled M&M is the center. In short it's not.

Re:NEWS FLASH: English is ambiguous.

[Anonymous Coward]

What if it's a plain, crispy, almond, peanut butter, or dark chocolate M&M? Then your 'peanut' is undefined! AHH!!!

Re:NEWS FLASH: English is ambiguous.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not the centre. It's the center.

Re:NEWS FLASH: English is ambiguous.

[jelle]

"they are only going through the candy shell to grab a little chocolate."

I don't see any problem with that. Chocolate tastes extremely well. Make sure to get the dark chocolate M&Ms. They are hard to find, but taste much better than the milk chocolate M&Ms.

Re:NEWS FLASH: English is ambiguous.

[LeoHat]

Now I'm hungry

Re:NEWS FLASH: English is ambiguous.

[StrongAxe]

Make sure to get the dark chocolate M&Ms. They are hard to find, but taste much better than the milk chocolate M&Ms.

Most definitely!

The problem now is finding a dark chocolate Earth...

Re:NEWS FLASH: English is ambiguous.

[hesiod]

> The problem now is finding a dark chocolate Earth...

That's easy. The problem REALLY is getting to the parallel dark-chocolate universe, where the dark-chocolate Earth resides.

A good shag

[br4inst0rm]

In other news, With profound obesity in human beings these days... damn @ the lengths we have to go through for a good shag!

Re:A good shag

[Snooper_1989]

Agreed, second, third, motion passed.

using unobtainium ?

[shashark]

The core has been breached before -- described here in detail
--
The Core: "Someone set up us the bomb"

Re:using unobtainium ?

[rokzy]

the much shorter version of that review: bitch, bitch, bitch, there's incorrect physics in a movie [shock horror!], bitch, bitch, bitch

Re:using unobtainium ?

[zippthorne]

The difference between bitching about, say armageddon, which had some bad physics and a watchable plot (It was an oil driller movie rather than an asteroid movie after all.. kinda like abyss was actually a trucker movie) and 'the core' is that the core didn't just have SOME bad physics. it had ALL bad physics and was a formula movie to boot. It's the shiniest example of hollywood's willing violation of the laws of thermodynamics (for no good reason... many of these movies could've been made with reasonable physics without changing the plot all that much) - a case study if you will. In fact, by some accounts it deserves the title of worst movie phyics ever. (which is why I watched it. It's so bad, it starts people talking about good physics. check out http://www.badastronomy.com/ sometime to see what I'm talking about.

The team wants to....

[Evil W1zard]

"The team wants to retrieve samples from the mantle, six miles down, to learn more about what triggers undersea earthquakes" What they are going to learn is that Giant Drill ships that are punching a big ass hole in the Earth's crust trigger undersea earthquakes.

and this might help in --

[shashark]

From the article: "Heatproof enzymes isolated from bugs brought back by earlier Japanese drill missions are now used in washing powders."

Now that's interesting. Rocket science meets home science.
--

last thing you want to hear

[sl4shd0rk]

Better head for the Moon.

dr. who

[Leibniz42]

this is a really bad idea. hasn't anyone seen inferno, the pertwee era doctor who episode???

Re:dr. who

[110010001000]

Exactly. There is green goo down there as well as the potential to unlock alternate fascist universes.

I suggest an emergency DVD shipment from Amazon to Tokyo immediately.

Re:dr. who

[Anonymous Coward]

ya know, I kinda liked that episode.

now, wouldn't it be amusing if...

[adamisklingon]

"The team wants to retrieve samples from the mantle, six miles down, to learn more about what triggers undersea earthquakes" wouldn't it be amusing if the drilling triggered an undersea earthquake?

Watch Out...

[scovetta]

This has already been done. They found an ocean down there, dinosaurs, and they even brought a duck. This team needs to do it with a drill?

Re:Watch Out...

[jnik]

You mean this has already been done.

Re:Watch Out...

[compuserf]

No, not that one. Try this Professor Challenger story :- http://www.classic-literature.co.uk/scottish-autho rs/arthur-conan-doyle/when-the-world-screamed/inde x.asp

Re:Watch Out...

[jnik]

Thanks; definitely more appropriate. Always fun to read another Challenger story.

reminds me of the movie The Core

[krunk4ever]

haha. when i first read this, it reminded me of the move The Core. movie was in a way hilariously stupid.

i didn't know we actually had so many projects trying to get closer to earth's core.

Re:reminds me of the movie The Core

[oneiron]

Haha.. Yes, that movie was so incredibly bad that it was actually pretty good.

Re:How interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent down! For some unknown reason he repeated himself...

We are in great danger!!

[dark grep]

Has history taught us nothing? Look what happened to Krypton when they tried to tap the core of their planet. And look what happened to the Atlanteans when they tried it, as evidenced by the Well's expedition to the Centre of the Earth in 1890. It is pretty clear the Venuseans tried the same thing, and look at their planet now. Will we never learn.

Sounds like a plot to a Godzilla movie

[scupper]

I couldn't help thinking, while rtfa, that this sounds like the plot to a godzilla movie. In fact, didn't they make one about drilling into the earth and then awaken some hell beast that gozilla had to kill in tokyo harbor or something? Didn't he have to cape a geyser of lava with a hell beast? I had the "lumbering" godzilla theme playing in my head as I read the guardian story.

finally something better than killing WHALES.

[cheekyboy]

Well, its 'towards' the centre, anything down is really.

But its good to see some real science, not their so called 'research' vessels for whaling , taking samples my ass. More like a sushi supply boat with 'fake scientists'

Re:finally something better than killing WHALES.

[Alranor]

Of course they're conducting proper research.

They're researching how many whales one boat can successfully catch at a time.

Wrong country.

[NubKnacker]

It's Japan, not the U.S. :-)

*waits for the flames*

Re:Wrong country.

[_Splat]

You missed the joke entirely. (It's from _Austin Powers_)

Obligatory Simpsons Quote

[Black.Shuck]

Bart: "It's my job to be repetitive. My job. My job. Repetitiveness is my job. I am going to go out there tonight and give the best performance of my life."
Marge: "The best performance of your life?"
Bart: "The best performance of my life!"

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote

[Directrix1]

Wow, a Simpsons quote I don't know. What episode?

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote

[Black.Shuck]

It's the one where Bart becomes the "I didn't do it" kid.

I forget which season.

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote

[Directrix1]

Oh yeah. Thanks.

Re:How interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

"No shit"? OMG I've never heard anyone use that phrase before! lolol!

by the way, "all over" is two words, 'tard.

Re:Godzilla!! SATAN

[Azzhole]

No It's the New World Order drilling a hole to the gate so they can drop a key in and relaeas Dubyas REAL father... Satan W. Bustos-Antichrist-Fernandez-The Third . He shall become mayor of Crawfod Texas and deceive the inbred masses.

Beware of Unforeseen Consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

The team wants to retrieve samples from the mantle, six miles down, to learn more about what triggers undersea earthquakes, such as the one off Sumatra that caused the Boxing Day tsunami.

Let's just hope that drilling through the Earth's crust isn't one of those triggers.

MUST STOP THEM!

[Theovon]

Oh, no! They're going to drill down and accidentally stop the earth's magnetic field, and then something else bad will happen, and we'll all have to move to Mars!

Re:MUST STOP THEM!

[th77]

Well, if that's what it takes to motivate a serious Mars program... Utopia Planitia, here we come!

Meanwhile, it's too bad that serious scientific projects only make us (myself included) think of sci-fi consequences.

This *MUST* be stopped

[replay TV Guy]

How stupid can they be? We all know that below the crust of the earth are were all of the mutated monsters live. Hasn't any one watched those old Japanese movies lately?

six miles down...

[cahiha]

and only another 3953 miles to go to the center of the earth. It's progress, I suppose.

News headline

[Centurix]

Hole made in planet. Last seen whizzing around solar system getting smaller and smaller.

No

[A nonymous Coward]

To be pedantic, the mantle does not go all the way to the center. There's the core below the mantle. To extend your analogy, the crust is the M&M's chocolate shell, the mantle is the chocolate below that, and the core is the peanut.

Re:No

[zippthorne]

I will further butcher the analogy by pointing out that the core is likely composed of two regions: a liquid outer core and a solid inner core. So the earth is really more like those crazy chocloate covered cherry liquor thingies. (if covered in a sweet candy shell. mmmm)

Re:No

[Cecil]

To be even more pedantic, an M&M has a sugar coated shell, not a chocolate shell. But I suspect that was what you meant to say.

Re:No

[bar-agent]

Hm...I don't think I've seen a candy like this. Cha-ching!

Re:No

[Artifakt]

Both the liquid and solid phases are really anomalous:
The liquid outer core is made of mostly the same stuff as the deep mantle, Iron with about 5% assorted dense metals mixed in. It's just hot enought to be liquid. The boudary region between them shades gradually from solid to liquid, so what we mean by outer core is essentially arbitrary. Geologists assign a level where it's 'liquid enough', as the boundary.
The solid inner core is a single Iron crystal. 1,500 Km across, and with damned near no contaminants. We guess this because earthquake waves passing through the inner core speed up if moving along the directions of the crystal lattices, and the pattern matches both it being a crystal and having the structure typical for iron at such enormous pressures. The boundary between inner and outer core is much crisper than the one between outer core and mantle.

Re:No

[Matey-O]

This also describes my favorite security model:

Crunchy exterior, soft gooey interior.

Re:No

[sharkey]

Mr. Owl, how many licks does it take to get to the solid inner center of the Earth?

Re:No

[DigiShaman]

And that film of mold you see...well, that's its biosphere

No no no

[some guy I know]

This is serious. Somebody should stop them. Otherwise, they will pop the planet like a balloon, causing the insides to gush out into space, and the Earth's crust to fragment and fly off in all directions. Those parts of the crust left intact will shrink to a small fraction of their former size (just like a ballon's skin), once the air is let out of the Earth. On the plus side, traveling from point A to point B will take much less time, once the crust has shrunk, but point A and point B will themselves be much smaller. Houses in the suburbs will start to look like houses in the city, i.e., scrunched up against each other with small to non-existent back yards. No back yards! Where will yuppies hold their barbeques? My god, my god! We have to stop them before they pop the planet!

Re:Godzilla!! SATAN

[Anonymous Coward]

stfu...

Oh come on

[WillieBop]

Don't scientist pay attention to sci-fi anymore. Doing this will release the aliens or the mole people. Stop the earths core from turning, cat's and dogs living together.

In other news:

[tamrood]

Japan will initially be building an airport, a seaport and a resort on the resulting volcanic island. Further expansion to Japanese real estate is planned for the future, including the possibility of a small continent.

drilling to the center of the earth

[aravoth]

It is fair to know something about the person who is addressing you, so, I am past middle age. History and the correlation to current events or thought and ideas, is sometimes best related in jest. I suppose our friends in Japan have not considered Nimrod nor have they ever stuck a pin in a balloon. Or maybe they are recovering from shaving a bobcat's ass with a shard of glass.

Danger!

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

the team wants to...learn more about what triggers undersea earthquakes

And believe me, they're about to find out.

Deep Core

[mattb5]

NOOO! Don't let them kill Wil Wheaton again. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0202314/

Cataclysms Ensue

[Zordak]

These guys have obviously never watched Dr. Who.

wait a sec

[Anonymous Coward]

They plan to do this underwater, right?

AFAIK, no undersea probe exists that can withstand even the pressure at the bottom of the Marianas Trench... how do they plan to build a drill that will work 12 km under water? The pressure there would be more than 1,100 atm!

The center

[TapeCutter]

I think they mean the soft creamy center, like the center of a malteeser.

drilling

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, Wasnt this how godzilla was found!!!!!

I saw this movie

[AbsurdProverb]

The core of the earth has stopped spinning!

Don't do this

[ThePilgrim]

You'll let out all the dinosors.

Apolagies to Jules Vern :-)

A better idea

[QuantumFTL]

This is cool, but the mantle is hardly the center of the earth. I'm much more interested in this - a proposal to create a molten-iron probe capable of actually reaching the core of the earth. A hundred thousand tons or more of the stuff would be poured into an artificial crevice in the earth, where it would sink down through the mantle.

The trick seems to be finding a probe that can ride the iron blob the whole way down, and keep it hot (probably through radioactivity). This was also considered as a way to dispose of nuclear waste.

At only $10 billion, this seems like a very hot possibility for exploring the mysteries of the earth. Just like sending a man to the moon, sending a manmade object to the center of the earth would be a seven-sigma experience.

Journalism Going to Hell

[Doc Ruby]

What is this, a Japanese bible university that says the core is halfway through a 12-mile diameter Earth, that is only 6000 years old? If they can't get those details right after talking to leading-edge geologists, what gives them the legitimacy to represent the scientists to consumers? Just a fancy printing press gives their authority, it seems.

When will they learn?

[brucifer]

Was being harassed by Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan and all the rest not enough? Now they need to go drilling into the earth to find even more monsters to rampage their countryside?

Pressure Drop

[Doc Ruby]

Why do volcanoes, and perhaps this hole, spew pressurized material past holes made in the surface? The crust isn't anything like a seal, and the mantle that we see exposed as lava is a fluid. How does one mantle volume under a hole (or weakness) heat up differently from the rest of the mantle fluid? Why doesn't the mantle just equalize that pressure increase in the fluid, rather than force open the brittle mantle?

Does anyone remember ...

[ScrewMaster]

a movie from 1965 called "A Crack in the World"?

I hope this project turns out better than The Project in the film.

Hell of a project

[inkswamp]

But aren't these guys aware of the important and certainly not-at-all-made-up story that Art Bell has been trying to tell everyone for years now? We have to stop this before it's too late. We don't want to loose the demons of hell on the earth to destroy the human race and bring...

(notices Paris Hilton on CNN)

... on second thought. Bring 'em on.

Re:Godzilla!! SATAN

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so sick and tired of all the George W. redneck jokes from tree hugging hippy liberals. I seem to remember (Maybe I'm the only one???) the last President being a blowjob loving, fatty chasing hillbilly. So old George comes from Texas, Arkansas is not exactly the intellectual center of the universe.

teehee

[ToasterofDOOM]

Reminds me that I have a friend that once thought that if you did something like that the Earth would pop/deflate. guess he never factored in volcanoes or anything of the sort

Some spoilers from inside the project

[savage1r]

The probe they're using is made out of a completely new material that's never been seen before that actually gets stronger the more it is exposed to heat and pressure, it's called Unobtanium. It's also specially equipped with a gatling gun style laser that can drill through any solid object (except for diamonds). Other possible uses for this probe would be to restart the earths core using thermonuclear warheads.

arbitrary Newton law...

[Anonymous Coward]

The best part from that article. Summarized: if only the Newton's laws were false, then our theory would be correct!

"The figures given for the masses and densities of all planets, stars, etc. are purely theoretical; nobody has ever placed one on a balance and weighed it! The masses of celestial bodies can be calculated from what is known as Newton's form of Kepler's third law. Kepler's law states that the ratio of the cube of the mean distance (r) of each planet from the sun to the square of its period of revolution (T) is always the same number (r/T = constant). Newton's version of this law arbitrarily assumes that r/T is equal to the inert mass of the body multiplied by the gravitational constant (GM = 4r/T).

The Devil's Dictionary defines gravitation as: 'The tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportioned to the quantity of matter they contain - the quantity of matter they contain being ascertained by the strength of their tendency to approach one another'! Such is the circular logic on which standard gravity theory is based. The gravitational force need not be directly proportional to inert mass, for there is plenty of evidence that characteristics such as spin and charge can modify a body's gravitational properties [6].
"

Drill from Marinara trench?

[backjackII]

I suppose if they started to drill within the Mariana trench http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Trench/, they'd be starting out 11km below sea level *already*. Perhaps, at that level, one could drill horizontally to reach the mantle. But... the sea pressure! ("At the bottom of the Mariana Trench, water exerts a pressure of 1086 bar (108.6 MPa or 15,751 psi)" (wikipedia))

Take that Godzilla!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah but we've got our secret weapon in this country. Thank God for Mathew Brodrick.

the core

[codename.matrix]

yeah, then we can recreate the movie without CG effects !

Pedants forever!

[A nonymous Coward]

Yesss! Exactly what I meant, if I had only known. Thank you, sir.

I suppose the lettering is like our buildings, inconsequential but noticeable.

DUPE! DUPE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sad when the Dupe is in the same article as the original.

Wow, just like in the movie

[Anonymous Coward]

More lame, silly-ass science.

Interviewer: How does your country plan to dominate the space race?
Government Weenie: We will be the first to land on the sun.
I: Won't your ship burn up?
GW: No, we plan to go at night.

Thomas Gold

[_iris]

Perhaps this will yeild new material for Thomas Gold to research.

Finally

[lawpoop]

Now maybe they can get rid of that pesky angel trying to destroy the planet.

Blame Canada! (or UK, or Australia)

[Dun Malg]

to learn more about what triggers undersea earthquakes, such as the one off Sumatra that caused the Boxing Day tsunami

Is that what they're calling it in Sumatra?

Drilling difficulties

[Twinbee]

What are the main reasons why it's so difficult to drill to the center of the Earth? Seriously, if we can dig out caves underneath the ground, then what's stopping us going all the way?

But the *REAL* question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have these scientists been investing heavily in MC Pee Pants diet pills?

Russians tried it.

[pablo_max]

As I recall, some years back the russians tried this very thing. They didnt make much progress though. It was plauged with problems from the onset. They found out the hard way that it's better to do this on land. Who knows though, maybe this new team will learn from what russia messed up. Not sure its a very good idea to go poking holes in the earth though. Being as we dont actually know whats down there, we don't actually know what would really happen...still, it would be cool

Newsflash

[KidSock]

I can see the headlines now "Giant Drill Ship Triggers Undersea Earthquake".

Am I the only one to worry about this?

[mnmn]

If the mantle is fluid enough and under pressure, wouldnt it gush out and form a volcano? We dont have volcanoes everywhere because the crust is thick enough to hold it down. Punch a hole in the waterbed and viola!

Volcanoes have a knack of closing themselves up, which is partly why this is being done in the ocean. Would be cool to have a build-a-volcano-mountain experiment on the surface somewhere, maybe close to Mt Fiji to augument the current one.

I'm opening a bar...

[MobiusX]

AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH!! Peter: We don't get many of you molten rock men in here. Molten Rock Man: At these prices, I'm not surprised! Peter: That's it, buddy. YOU...ARE...OUTTA HERE!!

OMG Crack in the WORLD!!!

[joe_n_bloe]

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0059065/

Perhaps they will hear people being in hell

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they will hear those unfortunate people who are trapped in hell, if they bring down a microphone when they have managed to drill the hole.

Remeber the movie ...

[scharkalvin]

"Crack in the World"?
Where they drilled to the earths core and caused the mantle to crack. A huge chunk of the earth broke away and formed a new moon. OK, in the movie they did use an Atomic Bomb to break through when the drill broke, but still ..... I'm getting worried.

Isn't the center still hot?!

[9Nails]

Maybe I was asleep when I went to class that one day, but I thought that the crust of the Earth was sitting on top of a ball of hot magma. Wouldn't this suggest that if you drill down to it that you would only create your very own private volcano? And, if you could get that close, how would you go about and keep the drill machine from melting? I assume that the boffins have thought of everything. So I eagerly wait to hear about the results.

Obviously has failed to read classic literature

[j_w_d]

According to Professor George Edward Challenger, who conducted a drilling probe prior to World War I, the earth's crust is exactly "...fourteen thousand four hundred and forty-two yards..." in thickness.

Misleading title...

[KD5YPT]

They are not even trying to get the the center of the earth. They're merely trying to get 6 miles down to get some samples. 6 miles are NOT even remotely close to the center of the Earth.

No No NO

[protolith]

No No, they are drilling in the ocean, The pacific ocean will drain into the hollow core. Its realy a ploy to lower sea level and gain more land for Japan. After all, that WWII thing didn't go as they planned.

Gusher?

[PingPongBoy]

Then when the drill hits the outer core will iron spray up the way oil comes up? What if the liquid mantle rises and solidifies around the bit - would this stop the drill? In the Matrix a bullet-like drill makes a hole but it's no use if the liquid mantle corks up the hole. However, any plug that occurs would most likely be much stubbier than the hole itself and could be lifted out relatively easily ...

You fools! What about the Molemen?!?

[DirtyLiar]

This unwise intrusion into their underground domain will surely waken the Molemen from their 1,000 year slumber, causing the infuriated Molemen to rain firey distruction down on our heads... ur... Up, upon the soles of our feet!

Flee! Flee for your lives! The reign of the Molemen approaches!

(All this I have seen, and foretold in my book "See, I told you that was gonna happen". Soon to be in print. Be sure to buy... er preorder your copy today! (Shipment may take 8 to 10 years))

The japs are conspiring! Glomar Explorer reloaded

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably a spy mission. The japs are up for something nasty against the russkies. History repeats itself.

Do you remember the 1970's Glomar Explorer, the CIA salvaing spyship built under Howard Hughes facet to lift a sunken soviet ballistic missile submarine?

The giantic Glomar Explorer was openly advertised as a seafloor mining drill ship that was to collect manganese nodules and sell the rare metal at great profit. In fact, they tried to raise the K-129 submarine from miles depth to grab crypto codes and russian nukes, but the hull broke up mid-way up and finally the press leaked the scandal.

I wholeheartedly recommend that the russian counter-intelligent double-check what those yellow midgets are up to. All japs hate russkies ever since Halhin-Gol.

Show me the pictures

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to see the pictures of this HUGE "ship" before I believe anything...