This extreme depth is far greater than any previous attempts to drill into oceanic mantle rocks.
In the study, the researchers acknowledged much more analysis on what they drilled needs to be done.
Decades of ocean floor sampling by dredging have painted a rough mineralogical picture of mantle, he wrote.
This is just a small portion of a very, very long core sample drilled out of the Atlantic Ocean seafloor.© Sarah Treadwell, Exp. 399, JRSO/IODP
Yet, each new drilling mission reveals surprising views of mantle and formation of the oceanic crust.
More ambitious drilling projects will reveal important pieces to understand the biogeochemical effects of oceanic mantle.
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