Whatever happened to Project Mohole?
Project Mohole was highly successful in developing the technology for deep drilling from untethered floating platforms. The present-day offshore oil industry owes its existence to Project Mohole.
As for actually drilling to the Mohorovic Discontinuity? Congress and Big Media, as usual, had their heads firmly stuck in the usual dark, damp, stinky place and torpedoed the project.
Project Mohole (1966) was part of the Int’l Geophysical Year, which began in the 1950s, but continued much longer. The drilling was done from a ship, because parts of the ocean floor lack the layer of crust like the one we all live on.
I read a pretty short book about it (geared to kids, which I was at the time) in school; I must have Found it in the Jr High library during one of our elementary class afternoons there, probably 3rd grade.
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/aapg/aapgbull/article-abstract/50/3/651/552542/Project-Mohole
https://stanfordpress.typepad.com/blog/2023/07/the-legacy-of-project-mohole.html
https://www.vox.com/unexplainable/22276597/project-mohole-deep-ocean-drilling-unexplainable-podcast
Whatever happened to Project Mohole?
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You have to be ancient to remember that.
I read about the Mohole when in elementary school.