After Tom Cruise’s hyper appearance on Oprah and his controversial blasting of Brooke Shields for using medication, the late Jules Verne may be rolling over in his grave with the news the War of the Worlds starring jumping-the-shark Cruise will soon come out.
But here’s some news that should please the dead author (as much as any news would please a dead author). If this Guardian report is true, shouldn’t we now re-christien him a psychic?
Japanese scientists are to explore the centre of the Earth. Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below.
The team wants to retrieve samples from the mantle, six miles down, to learn more about what triggers undersea earthquakes, such as the one off Sumatra that caused the Boxing Day tsunami. They hope to study the deep rocks and mud for records of past climate change and to see if the deepest regions of Earth could harbour life.
Asahiko Taira, director general of the Centre for Deep Earth Exploration in Yokohama, near Tokyo, said: “One of the main purposes of doing this is finding deep bacteria within the ocean crust and upper mantle. We believe there has to be life there. It’s the same mission as searching for life on Mars.”
Rocks in the upper mantle produce compounds essential for life when they react with seawater. “This is a system which we believe created early life. There may be a chance that we can catch the origin of life still taking place today,” Prof Taira said.
The 57,500-tonne drill ship Chikyu (Japanese for Earth) is being prepared in the southern port of Nagasaki. Two-thirds the length of the Titanic, it is fitted with technology borrowed from the oil industry that will allow it to bore through 7,000 metres of crust below the seabed while floating in 2,500 metres of water – requiring a drill pipe 25 times the height of the Empire State building.
The deepest hole drilled through the seabed so far reached 2,111 metres. After final sea trials this year, the scientists will set sail for the deep Pacific where the Earth’s crust is thinnest. Drilling is expected to begin next year.
It could take more than a year to drive through miles of crust and reach the mantle, so the ship is fitted with six rotating thrusters controlled by GPS satellites to keep it directly over the hole. The drill is surrounded by a sleeve that contains a shock-absorbing chemical mud, and a blowout valve will protect it should the team strike oil or superheated rock in the crust.
The project is part of an international effort called the Integrated Ocean Drilling Programme which also involves the US and Europe.
There was as movie version of Jules Vern’s Journey To The Center of the Earth. Has Pat Boone contacted the Japanese scientists yet?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.