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Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll learn when you read this story:<\/p>\n
To understand the mantle\u2014the largest layer of Earth\u2019s rocky body\u2014scientists drill deep cores out of the Earth.<\/p>\n
Scientists drilled the deepest core yet and recovered serpentinized peridotite that forms when saltwater interacts with mantle rock.<\/p>\n
Although this is the deepest into the mantle scientists have ever drilled, the mission didn\u2019t uncover pristine mantle that lies beyond the Mohorovi\u010di\u0107 discontinuity, or Moho, boundary.<\/p>\n
If you want to understand the geology of our home planet, studying the mantle is a great place to start. Separating the planet\u2019s rocky crust and the molten outer core, the mantle<\/a> makes up 70 percent of the Earth\u2019s mass and 84 percent of its volume. But despite its outsized influence on the planet\u2019s geologic processes, scientists have never directly sampled rocks from this immensely important geologic layer.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s understandable, especially when you consider that the crust is roughly 9 to 12 miles thick on average. Luckily, that average contains outliers\u2014areas of the world where the crust<\/a> is actually incredibly thin and faulting exposes the mantle through cracks. One such area is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, specifically near an underwater mountain called the Atlantis Massif.<\/p>\n On the south side of this massif is an area known as the Lost City\u2014a hydrothermal field whose vent fluids are highly alkaline and rich in hydrogen, methane, and other carbon compounds. This makes the area a particularly compelling candidate for explaining how early life evolved on Earth<\/a>. Additionally, it contains mantle rock that interacts with seawater in a process known as \u201cserpentinization,\u201d which alters the rock\u2019s structure and gives it a green, marble-like appearance.<\/p>\n It was here, 800 meters south of this field, in May 2023 that members of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP)\u2014aboard the JOIDES Resolution, a 470-foot-long research vessel rented by the U.S. National Science Foundation\u2014extracted a 1,268-meter core containing abyssal peridotites, which are the primary rocks<\/a> that make up the Earth\u2019s upper mantle. The results of the study were published in the journal Science<\/a>.<\/p>\n Although this makes this particular drill core the deepest sample of the mantle yet, going that deep into the rock wasn\u2019t the goal of this record-breaking expedition.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had only planned to drill for 200 meters, because that was the deepest people had ever managed to drill in mantle rock,\u201d Johan Lissenberg, a petrologist at Cardiff University and co-author of the study, told Nature<\/a>. He said that the drilling<\/a> was so easy that they progressed three times faster than usual. The team eventually drilled a staggering 1,268 meters, and only stopped due to the mission\u2019s limited operations window.<\/p>\n Andrew McCaig\u2014study co-author and University of Leeds scientist\u2014said in an article from The Conversation<\/a> that, according to a preliminary analysis of the rock, the core\u2019s composition contains a variety of peridotite called harzburgite that forms via partial melting of mantle rock. It also contained rocks known as gabbros, which are coarse-grained igneous rocks. Both of these rocks then chemically reacted with seawater<\/a>, changing their composition.<\/p>\n While this core represents an incredibly opportunity to learn more about the Earth\u2019s mantle, as well as give an in-depth look at the geologic<\/a> substrate upon which the Lost City rests, the mission didn\u2019t quite complete the \u201cgrand challenge\u201d of crossing the Mohorovi\u010di\u0107 discontinuity. Otherwise known as the Moho, the Mohorovi\u010di\u0107 discontinuity is recognized as the true boundary between the crust and pristine mantle.<\/p>\n Future missions could continue exploring this site near the Atlantis Massif, but sadly, those missions won\u2019t include JOIDES Resolution\u2014the NSF declined to fund more core drilling past 2024<\/a>. Just as scientists are finally knocking on the door to the Earth\u2019s most ubiquitous geologic layer, the future of these kinds of drilling missions<\/a> is now uncertain.<\/p>\n You Might Also Like<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links.” Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[211970,211972,211974,211971,211973,79,15850,50018],"class_list":["post-452231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-atlantis-massif","tag-geologic-processes","tag-joides-resolution","tag-mantle-rock","tag-mohorovicic-discontinuity","tag-science","tag-scientists","tag-upper-mantle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}