Its total depth is 1,268 metres: the deepest hole ever drilled into a layer of our planet that lies well below the layer we walk on. And into the Atlantic Ocean floor to boot.
The layer in question is called the “mantle”, and lies below the “crust”, the layer we know, where all forms of life coexist.
The Earth's crust is on average 25 kilometers thick, so the deepest drilling in history — The record is 12.2 km.The Soviets reached the Arctic Peninsula – it was always made within this upper layer of our planet.
But there are places where the mantle reaches the ocean floor, where continental plates meet. One such place is, Massif Atlantisis an underwater mountain range in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. This is where the drilling in question took place here in the summer of 2023, Reported on August 9 In the magazine sciencesResearchers on board the specialized ship. Guedes decisionHe extracted a “tube” 6.5 centimeters in diameter, but more than 800 meters long, made up of 70% rock. Previous attempts to collect rocks from the mantle did not exceed 200 meters.
Aside from the technological and scientific achievement, the reality of drilling so far is Allowed You have Access to unpublished archives on Evolution of geological layers From our planet. And maybe even Researchers speculateAbout the origins of life: The meeting of seawater with mantle rocks releases hydrogen, leading to the formation of more complex compounds such as methane, which could have been Fuel for microbial life for billions of years.
