New Technology Could Drill Deeper Into the Earth Than Ever Before
An adaptation of oil drills for deep water could bring scientists closer to the goal of drilling all the way through the earth's crust to the wonders beneath In 2005, we came the closest we ever had before to drilling into the mantle: the layer beneath the Earth's crust. Now, with new drilling technology adapted from the oil and gas industry, scientists might finally be ready to reach that holy grail of depth. The International Ocean Drilling Project announced today that, with the help of a company called AGR Drilling Services, they have engineered a type of technology called Riserless Mud Recovery (RMR) for extremely deep drilling. RMR allows for a closed drilling system -- where the mud and drilling fluid are kept separate from surrounding seawater -- without the need for risers surrounding the drill to draw mud up to the surface. Althought it was originally...