Core

[Orca]

Anyone else have this problem?

Click to view full size image

[Ann]

The ultimate monster!!! Look at that maw!

Ann

[jman]

Anyone else have this problem?

Not until you pointed it out, but I will from now on!

[Beyond]

Orca, just think of it as a giant Tootsie Roll Pop. If you don't lick it, you'll never get to the center, so you won't have to worry about the center getting to you.

[Sam]

Just a quick check...there's no conceivable technology that would ever allow us to touch the Earth's core....right?

[rstevenson]

Just a quick check...there's no conceivable technology that would ever allow us to touch the Earth's core....right?

The outer core is nearly 3000 km down. The deepest mine in the world goes less than 4 km down. Not to worry.

Rob

[Chris Peterson]

Just a quick check...there's no conceivable technology that would ever allow us to touch the Earth's core....right?

Not a chance. The mantle is a fluid at extremely high temperature and pressure. No known material could provide a solid wall or sheath around a hole, even if we had the technology to make such a hole in the first place.

If we were ever to send a probe to the core, it would have to be some sort of self-contained vehicle, that could "swim" through the mantle. But it would need to be constructed from some highly exotic and currently unknown material.

[Sam]

Earth's Crust Missing In Mid-Atlantic
ScienceDaily (Mar. 2, 2007)

A drill will be used to extract samples of the exposed mantle.

---

Cardiff University scientists will shortly set sail (March 5) to investigate a startling discovery in the depths of the Atlantic.

Scientists have discovered a large area thousands of square kilometres in extent in the middle of the Atlantic where the Earth’s crust appears to be missing. Instead, the mantle - the deep interior of the Earth, normally covered by crust many kilometres thick - is exposed on the seafloor, 3000m below the surface.

Marine geologist Dr Chris MacLeod, School of Earth, Ocean and Planetary Sciences said: "This discovery is like an open wound on the surface of the Earth. Was the crust never there? Was it once there but then torn away on huge geological faults? If so, then how and why?"

To answer some of these questions Dr MacLeod with a team of scientists, led by marine geophysicist Professor Roger Searle, Durham University, will travel to the area which lies mid-way between the Cape Verde Islands and the Caribbean.

The expedition will be the inaugural research cruise of a new UK research ship RRS James Cook. The team intends to use sonars to image the seafloor and then take rock cores using a robotic seabed drill. The samples will provide a rare opportunity to gain insights into the workings of the mantle deep below the surface of the Earth.

Cardiff...a rift...
now Who does that remind you of?

--
Sam

[orin stepanek]

Scientists have discovered a large area thousands of square kilometres in extent in the middle of the Atlantic where the Earth’s crust appears to be missing. Instead, the mantle - the deep interior of the Earth, normally covered by crust many kilometres thick - is exposed on the seafloor, 3000m below the surface.

Cardiff...a rift...
now Who does that remind you of?[/quote]
That may be true; but wi\ouldn't that eventually cause the atlantic to boil away

silicates. The inner core is solid due to the overwhelming pressure found at the center of the planet.[17]
TemperatureIn the mantle, temperatures range between 500 to 900 °C (932 to 1,652 °F) at the upper boundary with the crust; to over 4,000 °C (7,230 °F) at the boundary with the core.[17] Although the higher temperatures far exceed the melting points of the mantle rocks at the surface (about 1200 °C for representative peridotite), the mantle is almost exclusively solid.[17] The enormous lithostatic pressure exerted on the mantle prevents melting, because the temperature at which melting begins (the solidus) increases with pressure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_(geology)

[geckzilla]

Or would the ocean eventually cool off that part of the mantle?

[orin stepanek]

Or would the ocean eventually cool off that part of the mantle?

Could be; but doesn't that make it crust again?

[Beyond]

Different composition, i think.