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get down to the Mariana Trench , the mysterious place on Earth , has captured manhood ’s imagination for decades — even more so in recent weeks , with news that conductor James Cameron is on the sceptre of take only the second trip in history to the mysterious dark nearly 7 mile ( 11 km ) beneath the ocean surface .
Yet some scientist are attempt to delve deeper still , albeit by means of technology very dissimilar fromMr . Cameron ’s magnificent automobile . They are endeavor to look at the geological makeup of the Earth ’s inside deep beneath the Mariana Trench in hunting of a few piece to an larger-than-life puzzle : How does water system move from the Earth ’s crust to its inside ?
Researchers prepare to drop a seismograph off the side of a research vessel to the ocean floor 18,000 feet below, near the Mariana Trench. The instrument will stay in place for a year, using rumbles from distant earthquakes to create a picture of the Earth’s interior.
" We still do n’t actually know how that happens , " tell seismologist Daniel Lizarralde , an associate scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts .
Deep body of water
Research show that water system is what reserve the Earth ’s mantle , a stupendous layer as rigid as brand , to stay viscous . And scientists screw that water supply add up out of volcanoes — a conduit for material to the open world from the Earth ’s innards — another revealing sign there ’s weewee in the cape . It ’s just not clear how it ’s getting all the way down there .
Researchers prepare to drop a seismograph off the side of a research vessel to the ocean floor 18,000 feet below, near the Mariana Trench. The instrument will stay in place for a year, using rumbles from distant earthquakes to create a picture of the Earth’s interior.
The Mariana Trench put up a great venue to try such a question . It’sa subduction zone , theboundary of two tectonic plates , where one plate is slowly diving beneath the other .
" The Pacific Plate is bow and immerse down into the Earth , and as it bends it cracks , " Lizarralde told OurAmazingPlanet .
Some scientists hypothesise that if those crack cocaine extend between 4 and 6 mile ( 6 and 10 km ) , deep enough to progress to the mantle , they could be the conduit for water to reach the Earth ’s interior , say Doug Wiens , a prof of earthly concern and planetary skill at Washington University in St. Louis . [ Infographic : Tallest Mountain to Deepest Ocean Trench ]
A volcano on Pagan, one of the Mariana Islands. Volcanic activity near subduction zones around the world is fueled in part by water in the mantle.
Deep field study
Lizarralde and Wiens , along with a squad of other scientists , of late completed some of the initial champaign study for a project point at testing this hypothesis . They rig out a storage-battery grid of detector over a portion of the Mariana Trench to heed for the way of life phone travels through the underlying stone , which will permit them to construct a kind of CAT scan of the geological bodily structure of the orbit .
If they see grounds of a particular mineral called serpentinite — a mineral created when weewee reacts with another mineral unremarkably found deep in the Earth — the squad may have cross down the delivery system that inject water into the mantle .
A map of the research area around the Mariana Trench. Guam and the Challenger Deep lie just out of frame to the south. Red stars represent seismometers that remain on the seafloor. The white lines within the purple shading are the cracks in the seafloor scientists believe may be allowing water to reach the mantle.
Water ca n’t simplyhitch a drive to the Earth ’s interioraboard any ordinary stone . If the rock is too tenuous , the crushing pressure and heat in the Earths ' crust will basically twitch out all the water supply before it get anywhere near the mantle . But serpentinite ’s quartz social structure render a variety of laborious , mineral suitcase for water molecule , reserve them to buy the farm through the heat and press of the freshness , and reach the mantle unscathed .
When all the data have come in , by early 2013 , the scientist say they will eventually be able to represent a good part of the geologic war paint beneath the Mariana Trenchto a deepness of about 60 miles ( 100 km ) .
Both scientist said they are looking forrard to seeing their result and finding out what they mean for understanding the movements of the inner Earth and the shift of the planet ’s tectonic plates .
" We think water may be what allows us to have home base tectonics on Earth , " Wiens said . Without plate tectonics , the cosmos would be all dissimilar . "
