• Question: when do you think we can dig deep enough to reach the earths mantle and experiment on it?

    Asked by razza2k11 to Charlie, Eoin, Jemma, Julian, Steve on 21 Mar 2011.
    • Photo: Julian Rayner

      Julian Rayner answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Hi razza2k11. I am not a geologist, but I am guessing that the answer is no. Could well be wrong though. I do know that some mines in South Africa are so deep underground, that the walls are really hot to touch. Sounds a little freaky to me, I would keep imagining that we would be about to break though into the liquid rock beneath…

    • Photo: Eoin Lettice

      Eoin Lettice answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Hi razza,
      Apparently, there is a place under the atlantic ocean where the earths crust isn’t present and the mantle is exposed. It’s 3 kilometres beneath the surface and stretches for thousands of kilometres.
      Our best bet may be to explore areas like this instead of drilling down through the earth’s crust. It would be interesting to see what exactly this is made of and may well help us understand how the earth works and how we can predict earthquakes and volcanic eruptions!

      Eoin

    • Photo: Jemma Ransom

      Jemma Ransom answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      I think I watched a film about a group of rookie scientists that dug to the centre of the Earth. I think it ended well, but I wouldn’t fancy doing it myself!
      I think the technology is certainly not far off. Essentially we need to overcome high pressure, and high temperature, and much of this technology is allready in use by machines that plunge the depths of the sea. As to whether we would want/should be messing about with the Earths core or mantle, that’s another I think ethical question we will have to engage with.

    • Photo: Stephen Moss

      Stephen Moss answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Hi Razza
      I don’t know the answer to this, but I would imagine it should be technically possible to dig deep enough already. Perhaps it would just be too expensive to make the exercise worthwhile.

    • Photo: Charlie Ryan

      Charlie Ryan answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      hi razza great question but i am not too sure of the answer!
      Apparently the deepest hole in the world is the Kola Superdeep Borehole in Russia which is 12,262 metres deep! That’s pretty deep hole – but not quite deep enough to reach the mantle. The mantle would seem to start at about 35km on average on the continent – so we have drilled through about a third of it (although this would seem to really depend on where you are on the surface).
      So we getting close but not quite there yet!

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