In this most recent news article readers are informed of what the National Science Foundation calls the third deepest plunge into the Earth. In which scientist said they had drilled into the lower section of Earth’s crust for the first time. This drilling was located at the intersection of the Mid-Atlantic ridge and the Atlantis fracture zone which are both plates of the planet’s broken crust. This site is called the Atlantis Massif. This location was chosen due to the seafloor being shallower at the center and logically made the drilling easier. These new developments might allow scientists to break through the mantle in coming years. I am not sure what the anticipated result of the penetration of the mantle is but it is unsettling to me. A new word was added to my vocabulary “Moho” which is a boundary formally known as the Mohorovicic discontinuity. This marks the division between Earth’s brittle outer crust and the hotter, softer mantle. My own research on The Mohorovicic discontinuity found the Mohorovicic discontinuity was first identified in 1909 by Andrija Mohorovicic when he observed the abrupt increase in the velocity of earthquake waves at this point. The location of the Mohorovicic discontinuity varies between about 5 km beneath the mid-oceanic ridges to approximately 75 km beneath continents.
The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program or IODP seeks this Boundary. This hole took about eight weeks to drill and brought back new information about the planets composition. Drillers used the vessel JOIDES Resolution. The 10-year, $1.5 billion program is funded by the NSF and Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology. ," I researched the vessel JOIDES resolution because The article did not provide additional information. The JOIDES Resolution was formerly known as the B.P. Sedco-Explorer. The vessel is specially equipped with multiple thrusters to keep it on position over a drilling target on the ocean floor. The Resolution is capable of drilling holes several kilometres deep in water depths in excess of four kilometres. The Core which is brought back to the surface is examined for lithology, sediment properties, geochemistry, paleontology and many other aspects. Instrument packages which assist in the analysis of earth heatflow and strain directions of plates have been left in some deep boreholes on various ocean floors. The Resolution is also capable of re-entering boreholes which have been left from previous drilling. After analyzing rocks the expedition leader Jay miller said that conventional interpretation of Earth’s evolution is ” oversimplifying many of the features of the ocean’s crust.”. Barbara John, a University of Wyoming geologist and one of the co-chief scientists on the expedition states "We need to evaluate all the data we have from the cruise and re-analyze the seismic data, to determine whether it's better to deepen the current hole or drill elsewhere, or maybe even collect additional seismic data to better constrain where to drill. Scientists know the planet is divided into distinct regions but don’t understand these layers exactly. What seems like a science fiction idea of drilling to the center of the earth might become reality.
Robert Roy Britt, 2005. Hole Drilled to Bottom of Earths Crust, Breakthrough to Mantle Looms. Live Science Technology Journal, April 2005.
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