Ocean Floor Crust Wound to Be Explored

eldavojohn writes "A group of scientists are disembarking right now to study an open gash in the ocean floor where earth's mantle lays exposed without any crust covering it. The scientists describe this as the result of the mantle moving too quickly for the crust to keep up. Either that, or the mantle was never covered by the crust and just has always been like this. From the article, 'Regardless of how they formed, the exposed mantle provides scientists with a rare opportunity to study the Earth's rocky innards. Many attempts to drill deep into the planet barely get past the crust.'"

Comments

Mid atlantic ridge?

[ruiner13]

Hasn't the mid-atlantic ridge always been there? How is this a "rare opportunity"? I don't think it will be going anywhere anytime soon.

Re:Why hasn't CRUST formed there?

[Bellum Aeternus]

You're right magma + coolant (water) = rock. The mantle is a section of the planet, comprised of different materials than the crust. This an opportunity to look at those materials without having to drill do far. Trust me, not many scientists was to be looking at 2000 degree molten rock up close.

There's a lot of other cool things we can see while we're down there, like how the rock crystals formed under that kind of pressure and how fast they cooled. All kinds of cool things can be interpreted by the rocks crystalline structure.