$1 Billion Mission To Reach the Earth's Mantle 267
black6host writes "Humans have reached the moon and are planning to return samples from Mars, but when it comes to exploring the land deep beneath our feet, we have only scratched the surface of our planet. This may be about to change with a $1 billion mission to drill 6 km (3.7 miles) beneath the seafloor to reach the Earth's mantle — a 3000 km-thick layer of slowly deforming rock between the crust and the core which makes up the majority of our planet — and bring back the first ever fresh samples."
Obligatory movie quotes (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Paging Lawrence Fishburn (Score:5, Informative)
That wasn't Lawrence Fishburne, that was Delroy Lindo. And yes, The Core [imdb.com] is one of the most hideously inaccurate, ostensibly scientific films ever made. What galls is that the film itself isn't awful in terms of character development or plotting - it's just oriented around a series of terribly wrong fundamental assumptions, and then ties itself into progressively more ridiculous knots to support them.
On the other hand, it is riotously funny to watch with a room full of tipsy geologists.
Re:Why do we have to dig our own hole? (Score:5, Informative)
Because a volcano isnt a straight shot. Know how water flows through rock via the cracks and fissures? Same thing with a volcano, just molten rock instead of water as the fluid.