Geoscientists have made an unprecedented achievement on their 60-year quest to know more about Earth’s mysterious depths.
Pieces of Earth’s rocky mantle were collected by a drilling vessel called the JOIDES Resolution about a mile beneath the North Atlantic ocean floor at an underwater mountain called Atlantis Massif – located on a special “tectonic window” of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
“On Earth, mantle rock is normally extremely difficult to access,” JOIDES Resolution states on its website. “The Atlantis Massif offers a rare advantage to gain access to it, as it is comprised of mantle rocks that have been brought up closer to the surface through the process of ultra-slow seafloor spreading.”
The research team, part of the International Ocean Discovery Program, originally set out to drill for clues to the origin of life – because the area’s richness in hydrogen and organic material may have fueled the beginnings of life.
Although scientists did not drill into the mantle – or set a record for deepest hole ever drilled beneath the seafloor – they did recover the deepest mantle rock ever, getting samples from as deep as 4,157 feet.
