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Danish Research Center To Explore Mysteries of Earth's Interior

Posted by samzenpus on from the jules-verne-approved dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The DanSeis Centre at the University of Copenhagen has just received a grant of more than €3 million from the Danish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education to investigate and tackle one of geoscience's great mysteries: do mantle plumes, hypothetically buoyant regions of heated mantle material rising towards the earth's surface, actually exist?"

56 comments

  1. Why not switch? by GmExtremacy · · Score: 0

    If only they'd have switched to Gamemaker...

    Such a disaster would have been prevented...

  2. Foregone conclusion.... by vjoel · · Score: 2

    ...it's a plume filled danish.

    --
    What part of `yes no` don't you understand?
    1. Re:Foregone conclusion.... by philip.paradis · · Score: 3, Funny

      If the planet is consuming too many plum filled danishes, I can certainly understand hot bubbles of materials rising up.

      Oh, sorry, you said "plume," not "plum." Never mind. Also, for anyone who thought of hot grits and/or Natalie Portman while reading the above, you've got issues bro.

      --
      Write failed: Broken pipe
    2. Re:Foregone conclusion.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plum Danishes? Yes, I'm listening....

  3. Great News by guttentag · · Score: 4, Funny

    I will be watching this closely, as I have often wondered what on Earth is at the center of a Danish.

    1. Re:Great News by Colde · · Score: 1

      Normally that would be "remonce" which is a mix of butter, sugar and often marcipan (or finely chopped almonds)

    2. Re:Great News by oldmac31310 · · Score: 1

      That's 'marzipan'.

      --
      http://www.acetonestudio.com
  4. Onion and /. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sorry, but in the last few days i started to confuse my rss feeds of "The Onion" and /. Is it just me or is the usual mixture of well researched and wildly inaccurate articles really gone mad?

    1. Re:Onion and /. by Anonymus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Slashdot is basically the techie equivalent of Fox News. We don't really come here to get information, we come here to get entertained and enraged by things that fit our point of view.

  5. It's the Bagrols you have to worry about. by kawabago · · Score: 1

    Plumes, who cares about feathers deep underground?

  6. What "new methods and instruments" ? by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In the article, it is stated that

    "Using new methods and instruments, we can take geologic measurements much deeper within the Earth than before. Now, down to 500 and 1000 kilometers! Methods in current use, by the oil industry among others, provide information for areas down to between 6 and 10 kilometers," explains Professor Thybo.

    If the multi-trillion-dollar oil industry can only make geologic measurements to a depth of 6 to 10 kilometers, what make you think a research program that cost 3 million euro can measure down to 500 or even 100 kilometers?

    Just what kind of "new methods" and "instruments" are they going to deploy??

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:What "new methods and instruments" ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nowhere it's stated it's the same kind of measurements they use.

    2. Re:What "new methods and instruments" ? by Rakshasa-sensei · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Also they aren't out to drill for oil at 500-1000 km depths.

    3. Re:What "new methods and instruments" ? by hackertourist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The oil industry won't spend money researching depths they can't drill to.

    4. Re:What "new methods and instruments" ? by CPCPCP · · Score: 1

      Or wont spend money weres no oil, by the other hand if theres oil in those suposed "study spots" and not just heated mantle, they would spend alot to reach it. IMO

    5. Re:What "new methods and instruments" ? by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      because the oil industry couldn't give a shit about what's down at 500km. They just want to know where oil is, and only the oil that is economically extractable in a reasonable time frame.

    6. Re:What "new methods and instruments" ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From the article "advanced seismographic equipment".

      6 - 10 km is not their limit but probably gives them best depth to resolution for what they are looking for.

    7. Re:What "new methods and instruments" ? by oldmac31310 · · Score: 1
      Clearly they have one of these things:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Earth%27s_Core_%28film%29

      --
      http://www.acetonestudio.com
    8. Re:What "new methods and instruments" ? by An+ominous+Cow+art · · Score: 1

      Summoning Shudde M'ell isn't all that expensive - in monetary costs, anyway...

    9. Re:What "new methods and instruments" ? by Diamonddavej · · Score: 1

      The oil industry won't spend money researching depths they can't drill to.

      However, diamond exploration companies will.

      Torsvik et al., 2010. Diamonds sampled by plumes from the core-mantle boundary. Nature 466(7304), 352–355.

    10. Re:What "new methods and instruments" ? by Diamonddavej · · Score: 1

      Mantle plumes and mantle processes in general are integral to continental break-up and the development of sedimentary (rift) basins, within continents and along continental margins. Petroleum companies are very interested in mantle processes and basin development (it's a branch of geology called Basin Analysis); some of the worlds largest oil and gas fields are found in sedimentary basins along rifted continental margins.

      Near me to the west of Ireland, there's the Corrib, Slyne, Porcupine & Rockall Basins to name a few, these were formed when the North Atlantic opened up in the last 60 million years. That break-up was caused in large part by the Iceland Plume and furthermore, it appears that fluctuations in the strength of the Iceland Plume over time caused land uplift and erosion (and thus production of sediments into those basins i.e. oil/gas trap rock). The reason why there was uplift is poorly understood.

      Mantle plumes definitely exist (Iceland would be underwater without it's buoyant plume impinging on and lifting up the crust). The question is, what depth do plumes start? At the core-mantle boundary ~2900 km or near the upper/lower mantle boundary ~660 km depth? The Iceland plume has been imaged to ~400 km depth using seismic tomography. This new project will extend the depth imaged beyond the crucial 660 km boundary.

      An Iceland hotspot saga by Ingi orleifur Bjarnason

    11. Re:What "new methods and instruments" ? by mcswell · · Score: 1

      Iceland would be better than Denmark, I think.
      "Descend into the crater of the Jokull of Sneffels,
      Which the shadow of Scartaris falls upon before the calends of July,
      Bold traveler, and you will reach the center of the Earth.
      Which I have done, Arne Saknussem."

    12. Re:What "new methods and instruments" ? by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 1

      I would mod you up if I could

      Many thanks for that link !!!!!!!!

      --
      Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
  7. What about the discontinuity of gravity? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why is the force of gravity at the core zero?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth-G-force.png
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Slice_earth.svg

    And why the hell is there a Gutenberg discontinuity where gravity increases the closer you get, then drops down to zero?
    i.e.
    The Gutenberg Discontinuity, is the boundary, as detected by changes in seismic waves, between the Earth's lower mantle and the outer core about 1800 miles below the surface. It is also called the core-mantle boundary.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohorovi%C4%8Di%C4%87_discontinuity

    1. Re:What about the discontinuity of gravity? by jlar · · Score: 5, Informative

      "Why is the force of gravity at the core zero?"

      Because the integral of the forces acting on some mass at the center of the Earth is zero. Or to put it differently: You are being pulled by (approximately) equal forces in all directions.

    2. Re:What about the discontinuity of gravity? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And why the hell is there a Gutenberg discontinuity where gravity increases the closer you get, then drops down to zero?

      Go to the first URL you linked to, scroll down the page and see where the image is used. Go to that article, scroll down until you find the image. Read the section where it's used, and pay attention to the shell theorem. Then remember that the core is believed to be made of a nickel-iron alloy, and understand that you're getting near to something massive when you approach the boundary. Then it's not so surprising that gravity increases, and it also explains why it is zero at the center.

      Writing this took me more time than finding and understanding the information.

    3. Re:What about the discontinuity of gravity? by Muad'Dave · · Score: 1

      IIRC no integral is needed; the vector sum of forces will do.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
    4. Re:What about the discontinuity of gravity? by jlar · · Score: 1

      "...the vector sum of forces will do."

      Yes, assuming point masses. But that means that you are summing atoms. For practical purposes I would make an integral over the volume of the Earth.

    5. Re:What about the discontinuity of gravity? by rgbatduke · · Score: 3, Informative

      Gravity does not increase once you are inside the Earth's surface unless perhaps you are moving down towards a large, cow-shaped lode of pure Uranium. Newtonian gravitation satisfies a Gauss Law (like electrostatic fields) and aside from minor perturbation due to the Earth being rotationally deformed and the tides, the field starts at zero at the origin/center and smoothly increases as one moves toward the surface in any direction, then smoothly decreases (like $latex 1/r^2$) once one is outside of it. Rotation (e.g. coriolis forces) alter the perceived local acceleration by a hair as a function of latitude. The slight equatorial bulge and compressibility of the core material keep the field from increasing ideally/linearly (as it would for a perfect sphere of uniform density). Finally, the Sun and the Moon create further local acceleration perturbations that are not strictly speaking variations in the Earth's field, but that result from the non-uniformity of the Sun and Moon's fields and the fact that the center of mass of the Earth has a different acceleration than points on its surface as it interacts with them both (the tides).

      None of these things are even slightly mysterious. None of them are really particularly difficult to calculate, or at least estimate. "Interesting" discoveries from the systematic study of near-Earth and inner-Earth gravity are entirely possible, but one would ordinarily consider the discover of a fifth force, or a short range modulation of the gravitational force, to be "interesting" in this context. In order to make such a discovery, however, one has to know the mass distribution and compute the net relative acceleration one should be observing to very high precision, as one is basically looking for an anomaly, and small deviations from a not-too-well-known or even well-defined base quantity are the most difficult to detect, see the entire (somewhat humorous) debate about global warming for an example).

      rgb

      P.S. -- Off-topic general query: Wordpress lets one embed latex in comments, and it isn't even particularly focussed on technical subject matters. Is there an equally simple way to embed latex in /. comments? I'd put the ideal form of gravitation inside a sphere inline into this reply, except that nobody wants to read things like \vec{g} = -\frac{GMr}{R^3} \hat{r} or the derivation of same in latex unless they know latex well enough to read it as rendered...

      --
      Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
    6. Re:What about the discontinuity of gravity? by louic · · Score: 1

      It depends on the definition of centre. If by centre you mean centre of mass, that is the same as saying: "we define the centre to be the place where gravity is zero".

    7. Re:What about the discontinuity of gravity? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gravity does not increase once you are inside the Earth's surface

      Yes it does. At first there's very little earth above you and you're still getting closer to the vast majority of the Earth. Take a look at the picture in the parent you replied to. Gravity gets higher for a while, then falls fast to zero. This shouldn't be surprising if you think about it a bit.

  8. Danish... by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 1

    Crispy on the outside, soft and chewy in the middle?

  9. Dinosaurs, giant diamonds and atomic bombs by evanism · · Score: 1

    It all sounds so cool! Sign me up!

    --
    Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
  10. Arne Saknussemm by Forget4it · · Score: 1

    I wonder if they have Arne Saknussemm working for them? Wasn't he a Dane that led a trail to the Center of the Earth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_Center_of_the_Earth/

    --
    Artificial intelligence is the study of how to make real computers act like the ones in the movies.
    1. Re:Arne Saknussemm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      He was Icelandic as I recall. Of course, at the time of Jules Verne, Iceland was technically part of Denmark..

  11. Didn't one of the old versions of... by Phoenix · · Score: 1

    Didn't one of the earlier versions of "Journey to the Center of the Earth" involve a Dane with a duck?

    --
    -- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
    1. Re:Didn't one of the old versions of... by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

      Nope. I was thinking that there were Danes involved in that too, but a walk through Wikipedia reveals apparently not. The explorer in Verne's original novel was German. Arne Saknussemm, the (fictional) medieval alchemist whose lead they were following, was an Icelander. Other incarnations have varied things; in the movie (and later animated series) with the duck, the explorer was Scottish. There was one version with a Swede involved. But apparently no Danes.

  12. There is nothing down there but dirt! by xmorg · · Score: 1

    Seriously! Yet another gold digging expedition in the name of "Science"

    1. Re:There is nothing down there but dirt! by CPCPCP · · Score: 1

      Scientist playing Minecraft in IRL

  13. Danish by Plammox · · Score: 2, Funny

    The horrible abominations you call Danish pastry over in the US, I wouldn't even feed to the pigs. I wouldn't mind my nationality being associated with a custard-filled fatty pastry, if only it was a delicious custard-filled fatty pastry. For heaven's sake, turn them into bio fuel or something, because they certainly aren't suitable for human consumption.

    Same goes for your coffee, by the way. :-)

    1. Re:Danish by Ollabelle · · Score: 1

      You have a point, but not ALL of our stuff sucks. Same thing with beer; if you look at the small producers, we have some pretty good stuff.

      --
      Ibid.
    2. Re:Danish by Plammox · · Score: 1

      Of course, this is just in jest. At least I know now to politely turn it down, if the company secretary wants to book you into a Holiday Inn, stateside.

      Waitress: "D'ya want some more coffee, Hon?"
      Me: "NO, NO, I mean, eehhh, no thank you,"

      Your large selection of weird brew-beers was a positive surprise, though.

    3. Re:Danish by trongey · · Score: 1

      ... Danish pastry over in the US, I wouldn't even feed to the pigs...

      Well, DUH. Neither would I. Why would you give something so awesomely yummy to a pig?

      --
      You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
    4. Re:Danish by oldmac31310 · · Score: 1

      American chocolate has to be the worst in the world.

      --
      http://www.acetonestudio.com
  14. Just another remake by ihtpsswrds · · Score: 1

    Reminds me of something: now what was that... There's a Danish researcher and a goose, an older scientist and his young apprentice and a rich lady in pink stretch pants. Are we sure this wasn't an announcement from Disney studios?

  15. Pellucidar by lwriemen · · Score: 1

    The hollow-earthers were right! The GOP hopefuls should probably campaign on gaining ownership of the natural resources of Pellucidar; it'd fit right in with their anti-anthropomorphic climate change, sustainable fossil fuels, and creationism beliefs. :-D

  16. Reptilicus! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oil companies only drill down as far as the depth from which they can reasonably extract oil. The Danes are more ambitious.
        They plan on drilling down to the Dinosaur level.
        From there, it's Dinosaurs all the way down

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056405/

  17. Old News by Gramie2 · · Score: 1

    I thought that these questions had been conclusively settled, as chronicled in that fine documentary The Core

  18. Inferno? Jon Pertwee? Bueler? Bueler? by Zordak · · Score: 1

    Am I the only person who watched Doctor Who reruns on PBS in the 80s? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Doctor_Who)

    --

    Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
    1. Re:Inferno? Jon Pertwee? Bueler? Bueler? by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Actually, after reading the headline my first thought was of Arne Saknussemm!

  19. Investigatory team by wolfguru · · Score: 1

    They are sending one scientist, one mountain guide, one unqualified but attractive lab assistant and the guide's pet duck into an extinct volcano to investigate.

  20. Earth's interior by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's filled with Satan. At least that's what my intelligent design education system teaches me.

  21. Any Icelandic staff? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If they don't hire a guy named Saknussem they are just doing it wrong.

  22. It isn't zero by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 1

    It is just a lot in any direction. Same reason you are not a stain on the ground from the massive pressure off all the air on top of you. Air pressure is all around and the same all around.

    A funny thing is that in theory, if you could drill a hole through the planet and you could jump down it and there was no air resistance you would pop out at the other end at the same speed as you entered. first you accelerate and then you decelerate. Of course, it would never work in real life but it is a fun idea.

    For a thought experiment, on the side of a mountain, does a plumb line (weight on end of bit of rope) hang straight down OR a bit to the side because of the mountain? What about the position of the moon? If it can pull an entire ocean around, surely a bit of lead doesn't stand a chance.

    We learn a lot about science and then a lot of us kinda forget to ask the next question. That is what makes the Einsteins and Newtons so brilliant. They did continue to ask. And not get told "because".

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:It isn't zero by Quirkz · · Score: 1

      It isn't zero. It is just a lot in any direction.

      My physics is rusty, but I'm pretty sure if there's zero acceleration, there's zero force.

      --
      The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
  23. What about whales? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Denmark is going to test its nuclear devices (tongue in cheek). Seriously, using a huge amount of explosives seem to be the only instrument of generating useful returns. Not being even remotely connected to geology, I'm not qualified to guess what new methods of processing the worldwide seismic data they have got.

    For one thing, I'd like to hear more in the vein of Environmental Impact Assessment. We've got enough naval low-frequency sonars driving whales mad, so this stuff needs to be clarified beforehand.