Journey To The Earths Core ... Kinda

Scientists are hoping that they can retrieve the deepest types of rock ever extracted, from beneath the seabed ..... now only a scientist could be excited about the samples that they hope to return from the mantle under the Earths crust, and that are thought predominantly to be peridotites, which comprise magnesium-rich, silicon-poor minerals such as olivine and pyroxene (see, boring).

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.