Heavy metal meets hard rock: Battling through the ocean crust's hardest rocks
Thursday, June 30, 2011 - 13:31
in Earth & Climate
Scientists and drillers recovered a remarkable suite of heat-tempered basalts that provide a detailed picture of the rarely seen boundary between magma and seawater. These samples were collected during a return to ODP Hole 1256D, one of the deepest "hard rock" penetration sites of scientific ocean drilling. ODP Hole 1256D has been stabilized, cleared to its full depth, and primed for further deepening.