Be

Mysterious hole may be to Earth's core

Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands - British scientists have embarked on a mission to study a gigantic hole in the Atlantic seabed - an enigma that defies traditional geophysical theory and will give researchers an unprecedented look into the centre of the Earth.

The 12-person team left the Canary Islands on Monday with a new hi-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 hole is about 5 000m under the surface of the Atlantic and located half way between Tenerife and Barbados. It has a diameter of 3 000 to 4 000m. Its depth is unknown.

The mysterious hole 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. 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 researchers.

"We do not know why that is," Searle said before setting sail on the RRS James Cook for the six-week mission. "Because of this gap we can see directly into the Earth's mantle." - Sapa-AP

Labels: mysterious + hole + Earth's + core

posted by ... @ 10:16 AM