Scientists plan to drill all the way down to the Earth's mantle

PhysOrg Mobile ^ | 25 March 2011 | Unknown

[Windflier]

(PhysOrg.com) -- In what can only be described as a mammoth undertaking, scientists, led by British co-chiefs, Dr Damon Teagle of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, England and Dr Benoit Ildefonse from Montpellier University in France, have announced jointly in an article in Nature that they intend to drill a hole through the Earth’s crust and into the mantle; a feat never before accomplished, much less seriously attempted.

[Kirkwood]

Imagine the center of the earth filled with oil. Drill, baby! Drill!

[DManA]

Oh, I see it was Mohole. Long time ago.

[N. Theknow]

What type of drill bit will they use that won't melt in the process?

Al Gore says it is millions of degrees hot down there!

And he knows everything since he made a movie, wrote a book and won a Nobel Prize.

[rockvillem]

I love this part from the article: This would not be the first time that a sample of the mantle would be recovered however, as volcanoes and such have been forcing under-crust material to the surface for eons; it would be the first time that a sample was found though that hasn’t been tainted by the process that brought it up to us, and that scientists say, is worth whatever the cost might add up to over time as the project carries on through years of laborious drilling.

Whatever the cost. Scientists say, so there ya go!

[bannie]

I don’t know ANYTHING about this sort of thing, but I do know that I’m quiet uncomfortable with this.

[Windflier]

Okay ... 4 million pounds per sq. foot, over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

There’s gotta be a way to put something down there that can deliver some SERIOUS geothermal/geo-pressure energy back up here.

What sort of technology do we have that can contain 4 million pounds per square foot of pressure?

[bgill]

Just because they can doesn’t mean they should. They thought the BP leak was hard to stop....

[Squantos]

ROTFLMAO !

Hopefully they fire up the linear accelerator on the same day so the diversion of guilt can be offset.

Ok who broke the big blue marble ???

[Windflier]

The Russians drilled really deep, 12 km, said it got really HOT, 260 degrees Celsius.

I remember reading about that. The Russians have the record for deep drilling, as far as I know.

[Windflier]

What type of drill bit will they use that won't melt in the process?

It had better be pure diamond, or something even harder.

[fso301]

One can only wonder why, and whose money are they using...

There are lot's of scientific reasons as well as commercial. An interesting thing about the Kola superdeep borehole drilled by the Soviets was the volume of hydrogen gas encountered. One could almost describe it as being a hydrogen well.

[Desdemona]

And they can’t just dive in an active volcano because....

[Windflier]

Just because they can doesn’t mean they should. They thought the BP leak was hard to stop....

I think that's everyone's first thought. Can you imagine an uncontrolled, runaway geyser coming straight out of the earth's core? Armageddon. Doomsday.

Personally, I don't believe that our current technology is capable of containing the sort of pressure and heat that such a bore hole would release.

Bad idea, in my estimation.

[I still care]

See the blonde scientist trapped underground with her lover and her husband?

You know, there’s not much cornier than old movie advertising.

[Forgotten Amendments]

[I still care]

Maybe they should have done it May 21.

[shalom aleichem]

maybe the hydrogen is down there for a REASON

[wally_bert]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfJINBvvHLE

[LibWhacker]

Michael Moore sitting on the lid ought to contain it, no problem.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

But but but - what about the water table? Stephen Chu says we can’t do any fracking, so how is this allowed??