Hole Drilled to Bottom of Earth's Crust 422
AtariAmarok writes "A new article is up on LiveScience about a hole drilled into the Earth's crust to explore the layers of our planet's substrate. The hole gets closer to the mantle than any other efforts that have gone before. The hole might reach the "Moho" (division between Earth's brittle outer crust and the hotter, softer mantle) within a few years." From the article: "The depth of the Moho varies. This latest effort, which drilled 4,644 feet (1,416 meters) below the ocean seafloor, appears to have been 1,000 feet off to the side of where it needed to be to pierce the Moho, according to one reading of seismic data used to map the crust's varying thickness."
Mr President, Dr. Evil is on the line... (Score:5, Funny)
Good day, gentlemen...as you are no doubt aware, I have drilled a gigangtic hole straight through the Earth's crust. This hole will allow me to usher in a glorious new era of total world domination; for this reason, I have dubbed this latest caper "Operation Glory-Hole".
You see, gentleman, the bottom of this hole is only a scant 1000 feet away from the firey liquid mantle of the Earth itself...when I detonate a small nuclear device at the bottom of this hole, Operation Glory-Hole will create a gigantic super-volcano, radically altering the Earth's climate and laying waste to civilization...that is, unless you pay me...
ONE HUNDRED MILLION BILLION JILLION DOLLARS!!!
Gentleman, you have my demands. Peace out.
Would it work? (Score:4, Interesting)
> away from the firey liquid mantle of the Earth
> itself...when I detonate a small nuclear device
> at the bottom of this hole, Operation Glory-Hole
> will create a gigantic super-volcano
Would any geologists care to comment whether it is possible to create an artificial island this way?
Re:Would it work? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Would it work? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Would it work? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unlikely. The Mohorovicic (Moho) discontinuity can be described in a few different ways - either where seismic veolocities have a marked discontinuity, or where a noticable chemical/mineralogical change occurs (can't remember what it is, I'm a geophysicist, not a geologist).
Seismic discontinuity.
Anyway, regarding the grandparent... in theory, the only thing keeping the mantle from melting is pressure (phase diagrams are easy to find). When you drill down, if you don't maintain pressure in the well, (again, in theory) you might be able to relieve the pressure on mantle rock and cause it to melt. Of course, you'd need a really big hole for the resulting magma to come up before it plugs itself like a puncture wound.
Making an artificial volcano is a highly unlikely thing to accomplish, either on accident or on purpose.
I've read one theory about the yellowstone hotspot that is related to this. David Alt and Donald Hyndman believe (found in _Roadside Geology of Idaho_) that a meteorite struck the pacific northwest and the impact crater relieved pressure on the mantle, allowing the magma to well up. This, of course, relieved pressure below and caused further upwelling. Each eruption of what is now the Yellowstone hot spot keeps the cycle going, they claim.
I don't think it's a very probable explanation, and it doesn't seem to be easily verifiable or falsifiable, since the original evidence would have been destroyed by the volcanic eruptions.
Re:Would it work? (Score:3, Interesting)
True, but depending on the size and composition of the meteorite, that layer could be *extremely* thin.
Maybe I'll go ahead and finish that second ma
Re:Would it work? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mr President, Dr. Evil is on the line... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mr President, Dr. Evil is on the line... (Score:5, Funny)
Uhhh. Hi Dick. How ya doin'?'
Re:Mr President, Dr. Evil is on the line... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mr President, Dr. Evil is on the line... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Mr President, Dr. Evil is on the line... (Score:3, Funny)
Duh, no it won't. It will make the Earth's core start to spin faster. Didn't you watch that documentery about the Earth's core?
Re:Mr President, Dr. Evil is on the line... (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds from Hell (Score:5, Interesting)
Click here for info on how this story really came about [truthorfiction.com].
Someone finally did the leg work to track the story down. On the other hand, I would like to find the source of the Audio Clip.
Re:Sounds from Hell (Score:3, Interesting)
If it's the same hole. The sounds were supposedly from "hell".
Obl Friends quote: (Score:3, Funny)
Check this baby out, dug me a hole!
--Joey Tribbiani
Yay! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yay! (Score:3, Funny)
The More Interesting Story (Score:5, Interesting)
is it wise? (Score:2)
correct me if im wrong but isnt the mantle under some pressure, and opening a hole will relieve that pressure and cause a large amount of it to flow out?
Re:is it wise? (Score:2)
However, its more than likely it won't flow out explosively.
Re:is it wise? (Score:5, Informative)
A bunch of lava will squish out, immediatly cool, and plug the hole, and they'll have to start all over again.
Kind of like Cool Hand Luke.
Re:is it wise? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:is it wise? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:is it wise? (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, this is exactly what will happen. Just think of it like pricking a hole in a balloon, next thing you know we are 'ppttthhhhhhhhhh' on our way to Jupiter.
That's fine, as long as we don't try to land on Europa.
Re:is it wise? (Score:2, Funny)
Start working on your lava-boats everyone....
Re:is it wise? (Score:3, Funny)
People? Boats? Endless seas of lava? Oh, great. If one person in Hollywood reads that, we're in trouble.
"Now in theaters: The sequel to smash hit Waterworld: Fireworld!"
Re:is it wise? (Score:2)
Also I think the size of this hole compared to the total surface area of the earth would make such a concern relatively insignificant.
Re:is it wise? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:is it wise? (Score:2)
Also keep in mind the earth's crust is significantly more robust and thick than the skin of your
Re:is it wise? (Score:5, Interesting)
The pressure outside the balloon is the same as the pressure inside the balloon. The reason balloons expand when you fill them with air is so that they equalize the pressures. Since the balloon is made of an elastic material without a rigid structure, maintaining equal pressures on either side of the membrane is the configuration that requires the least energy. As the balloon becomes really inflated, the latex can't stretch easily, and it does compress the air inside--but not much, just 5 or 6 mm of mercury.
when you prick it, the pressure equalizes, causing the balloon to pop
The "pop" isn't really related to the pressure equalizing. The latex is under high hoop and axial stress, and when it gets pricked, the hole that forms breaks lines of stress and the latex gets pulled away from the hole. This tears the latex, very rapidly--considerably faster than the speed of sound. The ends of the latex are under so much stress that they contract as fast as the tears occur, and create a small shockwave/sonic boom. When put scotch tape on the balloon where you prick it (before pricking it, of course), the strain around the hole isn't enough to start the tears, since that also requires tearing the scotch tape (or tearing away from it).
However, you're very right that we can't compare this to the earth, because the crust of the earth certainly isn't under high uniform elastic tension attempting to maintain internal and external pressures.
Re:is it wise? (Score:3, Insightful)
The poster was describing how the earth is not like a balloon and that you cannot compare them.
Then, without any apparent thought or reasoning, you try and compare a balloon and a tyre.
Note that he mentioned that there was a small amount of pressure in the balloon. This is because balloons are stretchy - they stretch quite easily when inflated.
Tyres are a lot less stretchy, being:
(a) A hell of a lot thicker than your average balloon.
(b) bound and reinforced internally with
Re:is it wise? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:is it wise? HAWAII!! (Score:2)
I am just hoping they drill where the white beaches will be nice a warm, in few million years.
Re:is it wise? HAWAII!! (Score:2, Funny)
So you say we can make HawaIII this way?
Re:is it wise? HAWAII!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:is it wise? (Score:5, Informative)
Why, yes, that can happen. Mind you, "large" is only on the human scale, and this is hardly an unusual circumstance.
What is essetnially (but not actually) mantle-juice flows out onto the crust on a somewhat irregular basis. I'm sure you've heard of it, it's quite specatcular when molten rock et al flow out.
As for a "large ammount" -- us drilling into the mantle is like us sticking a very large straw into the ocean. Sure, the water down at the bottom is under pressure, and it will shoot up the straw if we let it. But the ocean certainly isn't going anywhere.
Re:is it wise? (Score:2)
> very large straw into the ocean.
More like a pipette or a hypodermic needle.
Re:is it wise? (Score:5, Informative)
If you do, then you should review some basic physics concepts. The pressure differential that exists between the water on top of the ocean and at the bottom would also exist between the bottom of the pipe and the top. So you would have exactly the same level of water inside your straw, as you would outside. Just like in a bottle of Coke or something. Putting one end of the straw at the bottom of the bottle doesn't cause the soda to come shooting out the other end towards your face (although it would be funny if it did, wouldn't it?).
The only exception is if you were to lower the 'straw' down while filled with air (by keeping the top closed and equalizing the pressure against the water using compressed air) and then when you got down to the desired depth, releasing the cap on top -- this would cause water to rush in the bottom to equalize the fluid levels between the inside and outside of the pipe. If the differential is big enough it may in fact be moving quickly enough to 'overshoot' the water level of the ocean and come out the top of the pipe, but this is temporary only -- the steady state solution is with both fluid levels equal.
If you don't believe me, go get a clear straw and a glass of water and come back when you've tried it.
Re:is it wise? (Score:3, Informative)
How many... (Score:2, Funny)
Grrrreat. Let's poke a big hole in the planet. (Score:5, Funny)
Bad Scientists! Bad!
Call up Galactus (Score:2)
If his wife answers, ask to borrow one of hers.
Re:Grrrreat. Let's poke a big hole in the planet. (Score:2)
Terraform: Construct Thermal Borehole (Score:5, Funny)
+6 energy
WARNING: Significant negative ecological impact
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Terraform: Construct Thermal Borehole (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Terraform: Construct Thermal Borehole (Score:3, Funny)
Yay! We've got moho mines now! I can start working on my BB and turn off the metal makers.
Great (Score:3, Funny)
China (Score:5, Funny)
Doubtful... (Score:5, Interesting)
On the drill head... (Score:3, Funny)
Screw black-holes and grey goo... (Score:5, Funny)
What happens if when they finally penetrate the crust the whole planet pops like a balloon?
LIKE A BALLOON!!
Think of all that crazy magma spewing out all over the place and our beloved globe zooming randomly all over the solar system before finally falling flacid and empty to the floor somewhere near Mars.
When will these insane "geologists" learn not to poke holes in our Mother Earth.
-Pinkoir
Soon We'll reach the underground Dero kingdom! (Score:3, Funny)
What are they thinking!?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What are they thinking!?! (Score:2)
Yup. He saved us, but failed to save the unfortunates on the parallel Earth...
Actually, thinking back, didn't Inferno supposed to have taken place in around our current time period?
Drilling Technology Upgrades Needed (Score:5, Informative)
The demand for advanced drilling technology is one problem with the current Moho sampling efforts. Exploration drilling of the kind used for oil production is not well suited for the work that the ODP [columbia.edu] is engaged in. Bit designs for the lithostatic loads that these dense rocks develop at depth require a different approach than those used to drill continental sediments buried at depth beneath the ocean.
Re:Drilling Technology Upgrades Needed (Score:4, Interesting)
If these guys can drill a hole this deep in a mere three weeks and nearly hit the Earth's mantle, doesn't it seem that it should be possible to directly harness the abundant heat energy in these holes? I mean if you can make one in a few weeks it would seem you could make dozens, if not hundreds, in a year. There's got to be enormous heat if you're a thusand feet from the upper mantle and you're right next to vast reserves of cool water as well. This seems the ideal environment for a heat cycle engine.
While not identical, the situation seems somewhat similar to the question of why we don't harness the heat energy of volcanoes. The answer I've always gotten is that it's too difficult to control a volcano.
Certainly that's reasonable in the case of a volcano on land like Mt. Saint Hellens, but what about these mid-oceanic ridges just like where JOIDES is drilling here. In this case, it seems you can create a sort of controlled volcano. In fact, that seems to be what they're describing. Doesn't this seems like a fairly accessible source of thermal energy?
Re:Drilling Technology Upgrades Needed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Drilling Technology Upgrades Needed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Drilling Technology Upgrades Needed (Score:3, Insightful)
So, you drill a hole, put some pipes to bring water there and up. Bringing the heat up will obviously cool the rock that touches your pipe, but as the rock cools, your power production drops. You can only produce energy sustainably if you limit the rate to such that the heat transfer from the rest of the c
1400 BILLION of oil sold... (Score:3, Interesting)
Now the average cost is probably more in the $10-$15 range.
So where does all this money go ? an amazing 1.4 trillion dollars???
Well... just like a cool movie plot lets follow.
1. Dig and pull out lots of oil in the middle east etc...
2. Sell it on the market for US DOLLARS
3. The buyer needs US DOLLARS, so they source it, buy it or sell current bonds whatever assets they have.
4. The US DOLLARS then go to the middle east com
Start drilling from the other side NOW... (Score:3, Funny)
Would be fun to enjoy the world's largest magnetic seasaw.
Why go through all the trouble? (Score:3, Interesting)
Lack of judgement, but not the way you'd think.. (Score:2, Funny)
Wait a minute... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait a minute...
Are you trying to tell me that this whole damn time, we've never broken through the earth's crust and seen the mantle for ourselves? We can send something 8.7 billion miles away [wikipedia.org] but we can't drill two miles down? Doesn't this strike people as a bit odd or disconcerting?
Personally I'd like to learn just as much about the earth under my feet as the stars above my head.
I'd like to see this get more funding and see us reach the mantle in the next few weeks instead of waiting for some time in the "coming years."
It's perfectly normal. (Score:2)
Re:It's perfectly normal. (Score:2)
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:5, Informative)
But this isn't the same thing. This is trying to drill down 3+ km below the bottom of the Atlantic. In this case the drilling starts under 750 m of water (and only because Atlantis Massif is a relatively high spot on the sea floor). The mid-ocean ridge in the Atlantic is their target because it has some of the shallowest Moho in the world. To reach the Moho from a continental section you would probably have to drill 25 km or more even with a good choice of location.
Hole's Enemy (Score:5, Funny)
Didn't Dr. Dana Andrews do this back in '65? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not a deep hole. (Score:2)
A small mining / exploration company in British Columbia, Canada recently drilled a full kilometer deeper (~2600m) trying to find a new extension to the old Sullivan mine, a base metal mine that operated for ~100 years.
They weren't drilling into ocean crust, so the moho is much deeper, but they had not much trouble getting to the depth they were at.
It's not as hard to do as its made out to be.
Re:Western Deep Gold Mine (Score:3, Informative)
A single continuous drill hole ~2600m long is a very difficult thing to do. Many things can go wrong to block the hole or damage the drill string forcing abandonment of the hole.
Mine workings like the South African example are not easy by anymeans, but are very feasible since you are advancing 10 feet or so at a time in , shoring up everything as you go, and can easily replace any broken equipment, and work around most ground problems.
Re:Not a deep hole. (Score:3, Insightful)
The drill bit is designed either to cut a tube of drill core from the rock that is recovered intact to the surface for analysis, or else to grind up the rock and wash out the material with the pumped water.
Usually the start of the hole is 'cased'
Wal-Mart and IKEA (Score:5, Funny)
How much heat can those RFID tags resist anyways??!
20,000 foot hole already dug (Score:3, Interesting)
A 20,000 foot hole was supposed to have been dug near where I live during WW II in a desperate effort to find oil. There is oil and gas around here, and there has been some exploration in the last ten years Sable Island to the south and Hibernia to the East (apparently a bullseye for US rocket debris [www.cbc.ca]!).
Here is the area:
Hillsborough Bay [google.com] map. Near Govenor's Island (switch to map from Satellite image to see names.)
Hollywood (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, like most Hollywood productions the science behind the script was malarkey. But it was still a pretty good movie for its' time.
Moho or Soho? (Score:5, Funny)
Not to be confused with Soho, NY where the bitchy upper crust and the hot artsy type meet.
San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (Score:3, Interesting)
They have finished phase one at 10,000 ft.
They have been posting news regularly from phase 1 [icdp-online.de]
--keith
They might stop the earth's spin (Score:3, Funny)
Re:First they pearce the crust... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:First they pearce the crust... (Score:4, Informative)
http://earth.usc.edu/~stott/Catalina/images/plate
My only question is what if the enormous amount of pressure from the mantle forced tons of lava to shoot into the ocean? Or in reverse what if the pressure of the ocean was greater and we open a giant drain in the middle of the atlantic?
Would the lava/water contact just harden to rock instantly and allow nothing more through?
Probably quite ignorant fears, but still worth asking.
--
Fairfax Underground: Message boards and Chat for residents of Fairfax County and Northern Virginia [fairfaxunderground.com]
Re:First they pearce the crust... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:First they pearce the crust... (Score:3, Funny)
No. It could be much worse. They could let the air out of the center of the earth, and it might pop. Even worse, it could jet around the solar system in wild arcs, making farting noises while all the other planets laugh and throw half-eaten cupcakes at eachother.
Re:First they pearce the crust... (Score:3, Funny)
No...everyone knows we reach China before anything else.
Re:Dickhole (Score:2)
They are building a highway. Me thinks they can't get there fast enough. ;)
Grammar Nazi new recruit? (Score:2, Funny)
I guess the Grammar Nazis have adopted the "Do as we say, not as we do" policy.
Re:What I'm sure is a dumb question (Score:2)
I think it would not make it to the other side because of air friction. Theoretically, I think the object would ping pong back and forth through the shaft until it came to rest, weightless, smack in the middle of the planet.
I'm no physicist, though, so I'm probably wrong. What do others think would happen?
Re:Help me out... (Score:5, Informative)
No, as magma is coming up to the surface all the time all over the world in holes much, much larger than the borehole.
If someone who was hell bent on one HUGE suicide bomb, what is to stop a country from picking 4 or 5 places around the world, dig deep, and pack a nuke. Blow up the nuke, and the earth is rearranged.
Nothing much would happen. The energy already being released by normal volcanoes and earthquakes is far more than we could produce with nuclear weapons. For example, the Mount St. Helens volcano released energy in just one day (18 May 1980) equivalent to 400 million tons of TNT - about 20,000 Hiroshima bombs. That is a significant fraction of the entire world's current nuclear arsenal - from just one volcano! A few nukes exploded around the world is not going to do anything.
Re:Help me out... (Score:3, Informative)
No, because energy is energy! individual pressure releases from magma chambers can be pretty much equivalent to the effect of nuclear explosions.
If it were possible, for example, to crash the fault in the Bahamas with a nuclear charge, the resultant super-tsunami would also cause more damage to
Re:Help me out... (Score:3, Interesting)
Cannikin - a 5 megaton ABM warhead detonated underground in Alaska - caused the equivalent of a 6.5+ earthquake, with part of the island it was detonated under being permanently raised, and a long section of coastline falling into the sea.
The CGS and USGS play this down a bit, and I'm not ent
Re:Help me out... (Score:5, Informative)
The CGS and USGS play this down a bit, and I'm not entirely sure why.
Because this did not happen. There was no earthquake. There was a ground wave produced by the blast which, close to the site, was similar to the ground wave which would have been detected over a much wider area if there had been an earthquake, but there was no quake, either locally or elsewhere.
Of course a small part of the island close to the blast was raised - this is what happens with underground explosions! But, the main effect was a 40-foot deep crater. As for a section of the coastline falling into the sea - I can find no evidence or reports of this anywhere.
Re:Help me out... (Score:3, Interesting)
There were many, many aftershocks after the main one. It's been about a decade since I took a geology course, but I have difficulty envisioning how this could occur if there wasn't some sort of tectonic activity in
Re:Help me out... (Score:4, Informative)
There was no shock! It was a local ground wave, not an earthquake. There may have been slight aftershocks at the site, as rock caved in to the hole generated by the blast. There were no earthquakes, and no tectonic activity - the blast was 5 megatons, which is absolutely negligible compared to the energy in even the smallest quake.
You can see footage of it in Atomic Journeys (the third film in the "Trinity and Beyond" series). It also has some excellent shots of the huge cracks opened by Faultless.
Well, big bombs will open cracks, but these are nothing on the scale of tectonic events.
I have not seen the film, but I don't rate a single movie narrated by William Shatner as a definitive source of scientific information. It may be true, but I don't consider that useful evidence.
Re:Help me out... (Score:3)
Nuclear proliferation is a serious business because nuclear weapons are unpleasant and messy and could cause millions of deaths, but as for global destruction, we haven't a chance of doing anything serious. Every few million years we get hit by asteroids that have more energy than all of our nuclear weapons combined. These events cause little lo
Re:Help me out... (Score:5, Informative)
Aren't they asking for one huge volcano?
No. Well, maybe in the movies.
Think about it for a second. All over the world there a thousands of holes that already lead to the molten material, and yes- they are volcanoes.
BUT, how many of those are constantly spewing molten rock? Relatively few. And some of those are so consistent in their eruptions people live on them. Hawaii for one, Iceland another.
When a volcano like Tambora (largest recent) or even Fish Canyon or Yellowstone (28 million and 1.3 million YA, respectively) went off, the earth wasn't "rearranged." Sticking a nuke in a relatively tiny hole wouldn't even really have a major impact on the local area. It certainly wouldn't cause the kind of damage you're talking about. How many times have nukes been tested underground, or even above? The damage to the earth was minimal. It was all the things around the blast that suffered damage.
Worst case scenereo and the USA is relocated to the moon.
Unlikely, Fish Canyon only ejected about 5000 cubic kilometers and it was in the USA which is, obviously, still here.
Re:Help me out... (Score:3, Insightful)
Such a bore hole is typically only a few centimeters (10-15) across for a depth of several kilometers, the rising lava would cool down and solidify within a few hundreds of meters.
And what about terrorism.
If you'd read TFA you would have known this drilling is a very high tech exercise.
Doing it at several places simultaneously would require the worlds best equipment, even the CIA might notice...
But then, du
Re:At what cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here we go again.
In order to avoid these inevitable comments that appear in every thread with a scientific topic, I suggest that no international research project be allowed to proceed unless it has been cleared by a panel of Anonymous Cowards who have been convinced after watching the teevee for too long that all science is really a scam to squander their tax dollars on foolishness like basic research that shows no promise of an immediate economic benefit such as a drug that makes your peepee harder.
In response to your question, you might be able to maintain a botched occupation for a few hours with the money.
Re:Let the mantle come to us... (Score:5, Informative)