New Kind of Metal Theorized To Be In the Earth's Lower Mantle 117
slew writes "This article talks about a study accepted to Physical Review Letters which theorizes that iron oxide goes through an insulator/metal phase change with high temperature and pressure. Originally it was thought to be a crystalline structure change, but now apparently it is theorized to be a new type of metallic state. This discovery might offer new insight on how the earth's magnetic field operates."
Re:Why don't they just ... (Score:5, Informative)
Because they are theorizing about layers of the core from which we can't even get a core sample, let alone a good look at. Deepest hole ever drilled is something like 12km and the depth at which this shit is is more in the 1000-2000km range than the 12km range.
It should be noted that the reason that they had to stop @ 12km was that we havent been able to engineer any drill bits that can withstand the heat much below that. 15km is the theorized maximum drill depth with current technology but no one has even gotten close to that. Last attempt was still over 2km off.
Deepest hole ever drilled (Score:5, Informative)
The Kola Superdeep Borehole is the deepest, reaching 12,262 metres (40,230 ft).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole [wikipedia.org]