But the distance that they hope to drill down to are awesome .... some 2km under the ocean floor, which will be a record for a water drilling. They have drilled deeper wells on the land, but as the crust is up to 30 - 60 km thick there, they have not reached the mantle, so that's why the coast off Costa Rica, has been chosen.
The ship from which this will be done is the giant Japanese Chikyu vessel, which is capable of carrying 10km of drilling pipes and even so they will need to find new drilling techniques and technologies technologies, such as new types of drill bit to make coring into the mantle manageable.
We are a very clever species, but one can't help thinking that we may eventually become the cleverest extinct species on the planet fairly soon ..... the age of the 'Intelligent Ape' may be coming to an end.
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