4 ms·
Why not probe samples from a volcano, instead ???
by pizu 14y ago
Why not probe samples from a volcano, instead ???
- TeMPOraL 14y agoBecause we want to know what's down there, not what comes up here.
- catenate 14y agoWithout adequate safeguards, what's down there will come up here (at least to the top of the borehole), and create a new 6km volcano. I'd name it Moria.
- felipemnoa 14y agoSo, If you want to create your own island in the middle of nowhere all you have to do is drill a couple of holes to the mantle. I can certainly see some people creating islands this way in the hope of using them decades latter.
- Evbn 14y agoSuperman movie.
- derekp7 14y agoI don't think it works like that. If you are in the middle of an ice burg and drill down to the ocean below it, does water start shooting up through the hole?
- catenate 14y agoYes, if the bottom of the iceberg-hole is below sea level. If the mantle at the bottom of this new bore-hole is under pressure and liquid, then it will go up the bore hole until the pressure above it equals the pressure below. If the bottom of the bore-hole hits a part of a liquid mantle with a lot of pressure, then we might get a volcano. Hence, Moria.
- bduerst 14y agoIf they hit adamantine, I say we call the whole thing.
- catenate 14y agoYeah, it would be bad if any of the clowns got out.
- gnaritas 14y agoThe mantle isn't liquid, it's solid rock.
- ambertch 14y agoI'd guess for purity reasons. Volcanic eruptions don't always come from the mantle - in fact think convection cells, the rising material actually comes from deep down
- techas 14y agoBecause the rocks extruded in a volcano suffer a lot of changes during its way up. Moreover, a mantle rock is composed by many different minerals. When temperature goes up, some minerals melt first. So, you expect the extruded magmas to be enriched in those minerals. The extruded rocks are not sampling the mantle properly. Of course they provide tons of information, but is not the same as having a fresh mantle rock.
- s_baby 14y agoAlso the possibility of finding new life forms. We've found life drilling several miles down. How much further does it go?