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Scientists plan to drill all the way down to the Earth's mantle
PhysOrg Mobile ^ | 25 March 2011 | Unknown

Posted on 05/21/2011 2:39:22 PM PDT by Windflier

(PhysOrg.com) -- In what can only be described as a mammoth undertaking, scientists, led by British co-chiefs, Dr Damon Teagle of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, England and Dr Benoit Ildefonse from Montpellier University in France, have announced jointly in an article in Nature that they intend to drill a hole through the Earth’s crust and into the mantle; a feat never before accomplished, much less seriously attempted.


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; drilling; thomasgold
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To: Vendome
What is that, like 4,500 miles? Hope they have a good cork.

Like someone else said; "and they thought the Gulf oil well was hard to cap."

61 posted on 05/21/2011 3:55:53 PM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: ExpatCanuck
Awesome! What could possibly go wrong.

When Tom chooses the South Pole as the spot to hunt for molten iron with his earth blaster, his closest friends raise their eyebrows. Even Chow Winkler, the expedition's genial Texan cook, says, "Brand my thermopile, if the young inventor ain't plumb loco!"

62 posted on 05/21/2011 3:56:13 PM PDT by ApplegateRanch (Made in America, by proud American citizens, in 1946.)
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To: ExpatCanuck
Awesome! What could possibly go wrong

There was a Dana Andrews Brit made sci fi flick that dealt with this very topic, though they used a rocket with a nuke down an African volcano instead of drilling.The results were not good to say the least.

63 posted on 05/21/2011 3:56:22 PM PDT by xkaydet65 (IACTA ALEA EST!!!)
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To: Windflier

Why don’t they just go to the North Pole, and travel within the Earth then drill up? Wouldn’t it be easier?


64 posted on 05/21/2011 3:56:50 PM PDT by runninglips (Republicans = 99 lb weaklings of politics.)
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To: Windflier

Probably full of cheap champagne....


65 posted on 05/21/2011 3:57:04 PM PDT by Vendome ("Don't take life so seriously... You'll never live through it anyway")
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To: runninglips

Nah, all the tree roots would get in the way.


66 posted on 05/21/2011 4:00:40 PM PDT by oneolcop (Lead, Follow or Get the Hell Out of the Way!)
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To: TomServo

On Netflix instaflix right now. I just saw it a few nights ago. It is awesome.


67 posted on 05/21/2011 4:02:01 PM PDT by sportutegrl
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To: shalom aleichem; SunkenCiv
maybe the hydrogen is down there for a REASON

Of COURSE there is a reason! When the earth was inflated, they had to use hydrogen,because not enough of it had been fused to helium yet.

The larger reason is that it is what keeps the earth bouyant enough to float above the sun.

68 posted on 05/21/2011 4:02:38 PM PDT by ApplegateRanch (Made in America, by proud American citizens, in 1946.)
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To: ExpatCanuck

“Awesome! What could possibly go wrong.
____________________________________

Gonna release all the other Marxist Obots that are burning in Hell, don’tcha know :D


69 posted on 05/21/2011 4:03:00 PM PDT by AlexW (Proud eligibility skeptic)
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To: Yardstick
Don't do it! You will release the myrmicites!!

Maybe that's the plan!



70 posted on 05/21/2011 4:04:25 PM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: Windflier
Jor-El does not approve.


71 posted on 05/21/2011 4:05:25 PM PDT by Bratch
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To: Windflier

As long as they don’t bring any oil to the surface. . . .


72 posted on 05/21/2011 4:05:38 PM PDT by will of the people
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To: ez
And venting super hot hydrogen gas from the center of the Earth is good how? I can’t think of a better way to kill everyone.

It's not super hot by the time it reaches the surface.

73 posted on 05/21/2011 4:06:11 PM PDT by fso301
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To: fso301

We’re trying to incite a good panic here.

knock it off.


74 posted on 05/21/2011 4:22:36 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: Reily

my thoughts exactly


75 posted on 05/21/2011 5:00:07 PM PDT by NonValueAdded (I asked the bartender for a bin Ladin, she said 'what's that? I said 'two shots then a splash.')
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To: TomServo

Wonder if anyone ever watched that movie?


76 posted on 05/21/2011 5:02:02 PM PDT by rawhide
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To: SkyDancer; Windflier
It’ll let all the air out and we’ll go spinning off into space like a deflating balloon.

Funny, I thought when they put that prick in the White Hut it was a done deal.

77 posted on 05/21/2011 5:10:37 PM PDT by bigheadfred (We will never surrender)
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To: Windflier
4 million pounds per square foot is about 30,000 PSI this video shows about 45,000 psi at work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmfQH1PTDAA&NR=1
78 posted on 05/21/2011 6:04:55 PM PDT by Steve Van Doorn (*in my best Eric cartman voice* 'I love you guys')
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To: Windflier

I just spent the last while watching early Ren & Stimpy episodes and realizing how horrible and corrupting they are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEdIf_gx_e0&NR=1


79 posted on 05/21/2011 7:09:28 PM PDT by Yardstick
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To: Windflier; proudofthesouth
They’re going to drill down to Hell?

FWIW, that had been claimed - read the link. I read about these facts in other publications, so there is something to the facts (but perhaps not to their interpretation.)

But as I understand the drilling at the Kola Superdeep was stopped in part because the funding dried up and in part because every additional foot was immensely expensive. It took something like a week to pull the string out to service the tool, and another week to lower it back... Basically the depth that was reached was at the limit of our current drilling technologies. Perhaps with the latest improvements another mile can be made. But it's 4,000 miles to the center of Earth; they can't be traversed without an autonomous machine that is protected by force fields (not with a material, short of Unobtainium;) it had been proposed many times in science fiction.

80 posted on 05/21/2011 7:10:58 PM PDT by Greysard
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