Digging deep.

A journey to the center of Earth may be out of the question. But scientists recently pulled off an equally tall task: They have punched through to the bottom edge of Earth's outer layer, or crust crust

Outermost solid part of the Earth, essentially composed of a range of igneous and metamorphic rock types. In continental regions, the crust is made up chiefly of granitic rock, whereas the composition of the ocean floor corresponds mainly to that of basalt and gabbro. .

Researchers with the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) is an international research program whose goal is to explore the structure of the Earth as recorded in oceanic sediments and rocks. used a drill to bore a 1,416 meter (4,644 foot)-deep hole in the Atlantic Ocean's rocky seafloor. Why go to all the effort? "We collected rock samples that will help us learn more about how Earth formed," says Jay Miller, the leader of the project.

Next stop: The team hopes to pierce Pierce may refer to: Places

Pierce, Colorado, a US town
Pierce, Idaho, a US city
Pierce, Nebraska, a US city
Pierce, Wisconsin, a US town
Mount Pierce (New Hampshire), USA, a peak in the White Mountains
Pierce County, several places

the mantle mantle, portion of the earth's interior lying beneath the crust and above the core. No direct observation of the mantle, or its upper boundary, has been made; its boundaries have been determined solely by abrupt changes in the velocities and character of seismic below.

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Title Annotation:	Earths crust
Author:	Janes, Patricia
Publication:	Science World
Article Type:	Brief Article
Geographic Code:	0ATLA
Date:	Sep 5, 2005
Words:	101
Previous Article:	Stressed out?
Next Article:	Fuming buses.
Topics:	Crust (Geology) Research Earth Crust Research

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