About the episode
That’s a record: 1,268 meters. And the researchers drilled that deep into the Earth’s mantle to get a soil sample. They did it in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a largely submerged mountain range in the Atlantic Ocean.
It provides detailed data about the composition of the mantle, and thus also tells us something about the origins of life on Earth.
Much of what we know about the interior of the Earth comes from rocks and stones extracted from the ocean floor. But there is still a lot that cannot be read from this, just because of all the intense influences in the deep ocean that can affect the composition.
For example, what minerals are present where in the mantle, and what the composition says about the processes in that mantle, you can’t see those kinds of things clearly. That works best if you get a drill that goes down into the ground, where you can then collect a sample of all the layers over time.
But this has not proven easy. They have been trying for decades. In 2023, they managed to dig deeper than was previously possible, and they are now busy studying the samples.
What they can actually see is unexpected. Much less of the mineral pyroxene and much more magnesium. This tells them that more melting is happening than expected based on previous research. This melting happens as the Earth’s deep mantle moves toward the surface.
A better understanding of how these processes work says something about volcanoes and how, for example, volcanoes on the ocean floor are fed from within.
What they can also see is how olivine interacts with seawater, a process that produces important molecules necessary for life. It is suspected that this process played an important role in the origin of life.
The search will undoubtedly yield more interesting discoveries. After that, we will have to wait for the next successful drilling attempt. Because the more places we have this data from, the more we will know how it all began.
Read more about the research here: Record-breaking recovery of rocks originating in Earth’s mantle could unlock secrets of planet’s history
