Robot to study hole in Earth’s crust
British scientists have embarked on a mission to
study a gigantic hole in the Atlantic seabed…
British scientists have embarked on a mission to study a gigantic hole in the Atlantic seabed… The 12-person team left the Canary Islands Monday with a new high-tech vessel and a robotic device named Toby that will dig up rock samples at the bottom of the crater and film what it sees.
The mysterious orifice is in an undersea mountain range, the kind of structure believed to form when Atlantic tectonic plates separate and volcanic lava surges upward to fill the gap in the earth’s crust. But that did not happen this time. Instead, the hole exposes the mantle, the material that makes up Earth’s interior, said British geophysicist Roger Searle of Durham University, one of the lead researchers.
The robotic device will land on the bottom of the crater, measure its depth and dig into the mantle to bring back samples.
What a species we are. Don’t we always pick at scabs?
Posted: Thu - March 8, 2007 at 07:02 AM