probe to earths core propsed

finally we may know for certain weather there is molton iron or lizard men living in the centre of our planet, or maybe they may find hell who knows but it could bring in some intersting new facts. oh yeah and they want to use a nuke to get it started

xtramsn.co.nz...

[Edited on 15-5-2003 by seedy_sid]

I cannot believe they only mentioned "The Core" once. I'll bet dragonrider could shoot this one down. And if the probe is in molten lead, how well can it tell the temperature of the surrounding area? And the nuclear explosion would cause plenty of fallout, enough to mutate thousands of people. I cannot believe that they are even considering this proposal.

XAOS

I admit, it would provide enough information to analyze until the end of time but its really not feasible to blast the "crack" (say no to crack kiddies) all the way to the center of the earth.

How in the wide wide world of Bruce Willis does he expect to get a bomb deep enough to do this and what effects will it have on planetary aspects we depend on to make a survivable environment if by some miracle of Ben Affleck he did suceed?

Maybe we need another forum labeled "Science Fiction" to post this thread under.

This has been tried in the past, with Project Moho which start in 1958 and ended in 1966. An attempt was made to drill to the Mohorovic Discontinuity, a massive density gradient at the boundary between the crust and the upper mantel.

The attempts at drilling that deep were unsuccessful, as we still do not have materials technology that will allow a drill string to survive the temperatures and pressures below about 20 km.

www.uwgb.edu...

www7.nationalacademies.org...

www-odp.tamu.edu...

pubs.usgs.gov...

www-odp.tamu.edu...

www.slb.com...

This guy is nuts! He wants to explode a nuclear bomb to crack the crust!!!

www.scienceblog.com...

There actually has been some serious research into using nuclear explosives as excavation tools, (including, check this out, plans to use nukes to build a replacement for the Panama Canal! www.americanheritage.com...

However, keep in mind that even though nukes are orders of magnitude more powerful than conventional explosives, they are not the be all end all. Even a 1 megaton warhead, which is one of the larger practical ones we can build, will only blow a hole a couple thousand feet wide and maybe 1000 or 2000 feet deep. How many are you prepared to detonate to get any decent depth?

Never mind the immense temperatures and pressures. Also, every time you hit a transition zone (crust to upper mantel, upper mantel to inner mantel, mantel to core, outer core to inner core) you have a huge density gradient. The transition zone between the inner mantel and the outer core has a density gradient so great as to be the equivalent of the difference between air and solid ground.

Someone has been watching too many saturday morning cartoons.

Dragon Rider, I agree. Evidently this guy needs to get out of the lab and spend some quality time on a drilling crew.

I don't think that they will do this just yet mabey later. Although it would answer some questions

Dagger,

Dont hold your breath, this will never happen. It is impossible from an engineering standpoint.