With the help of the Japanese vessel for deepwater drilling "Tiko" the researchers plan to reach the fault that caused the devastating earthquake Tohoku last year.

Scientists are going to walk right up to the mantle, which no one has yet succeeded.

If the project will get the green light, it will be one of the most outstanding achievements of science, comparable to the flight to the moon. The data obtained can flip view on the evolution and structure of the Earth. There is even a chance that we will find something unexpected.

Geologists not the first time I wanted to get to the depths of the planet. In 1909 Croatian meteorologist Andriy Mohorovichich found that seismic waves generated by earthquakes, spreading much faster in the layers located below 30 km, more than the top. This speaks a different composition and physical properties of rocks on the bottom. This milestone has got the name of the discoverer and since then it became the top border of the mantle.

Now, geologists know that the upper mantle lies in 30-60 km below the surface, and in some areas of the seabed is just 5 km. the Processes taking place there, move lithospheric platform, loose earthquake and create volcanoes.

The next step on the way to the mantle was made in the late 1950s. At that time the theory of plate tectonics was still hot debatable question. Harry Hess and other supporters of the theory argued that hot the convective flows from the depths of the mantle control the movement of tectonic plates on the surface of the planet. Since required factual evidence, Hess and his colleague Walter Munk appealed to his fellow of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. In April 1957 he was born the project Mohole. The legend says that it happened in Sunny California for Breakfast with a rich wine libations. They say, different meetings of the so-called American society of stuff did not pass.

Enthusiasts had to solve many problems of finding funds before the invention of technologies that allowed to hold the drill ship in one place in the open sea. Alas, the past it was impossible to borrow oil because they did not drilling in deep waters. So I had to create a dynamic positioning technology, which implies deftly placed around the ship propellers and engines. The first core was obtained from a depth of 183 meters off the coast of the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe in April 1961. He became also the last.

Soon after the expedition returned, leading scientists were utterly from project management, funding started to decline, and a young politician by the name of Donald Rumsfeld has achieved in the result of the fact that in 1966, Congress voted thumb down.

But geologists did not give up, to replace the fallen rose others, and drilling oceanic crust continued. However, nobody has yet been able to go more than a third of the way to the mantle. The record keeps 1507-meter well on the coast of Costa Rica. It is not the deepest hole (even in oceanic crust), but in this place the scientists proved to mantle the closest thing - the thickness of the crust there is only 5,5 km

As for the new project, called Mohole to Mantle, then he has a clear scientific justification. Although the mantle accounts for 68% of the mass of the Earth, we actually know very little about it. "We do not have one pure sample of the mantle," says the member of the collaboration Damon of Tip from the National Oceanography centre in the UK.

Some samples reaches the surface, but they are all dirty. For example, rare mantle concretions found in lava, suggests that the mantle consists of minerals that are rich in magnesium and poor silicon (olivine, pyroxene and others). Somewhere at the bottom of the ocean rocks that were once part of the mantle that are naked, but during the contact with the sea water they changed the composition. The difference is approximately the same as between the Martian meteorites and direct sampling rocks the red planet. And without pure samples impossible to confirm even the simple facts like the composition of the mantle, ways of its formation, etc.

You have to build a theory of circumstantial evidence. For example, you can monitor the speed of seismic waves, as did the Mohorovichich. In addition, there are meteorites, forged from the same space debris that our rocky planets. There are also more exotic methods such as observation of neutrinos produced in the decay of some elements.

As a result, many questions remain unanswered. Only if scientists will get the indicators of mantle convection (for example, noble gases and related isotopes), you will know how and when our planet was divided into core, mantle and crust and when did plate tectonics. The composition of the upper mantle would show as water, carbon dioxide and energy is transferred into the bark and how they affect global geochemical cycles. If it were possible to understand how heterogeneous mantle, would be clear, as the magma rises, and then erupts in the mid-oceanic ridges.

Perhaps, in the mantle can be found and life. Of course, this will not gulbiniskiai monsters, but the commencement of this does not diminish. And, by the way, similar extremophiles is not so impossible.

Last year, the Tallis Onstott of Princeton University (USA) found microscopic worms (nematodes) at a depth of 4 km in the South African gold mine. He found that single-celled microbes live deeper - up to 5 km

Beneath the seabed organisms found at a depth of 1.6 km off the East coast of Canada. The researchers suggested that they hundreds of millions of years, because they seem to be divided once in a hundred thousand years.

High pressure at great depths not a problem for a lot of extremophiles. Laboratory tests showed that the microbes able to endure a thousand atmospheres. Bacteria found in the Mariana trench under 11 km of the water. By the way, the pressure in a very hot environment, even useful, because it does not allow water to boil.

Thus the decisive factor can be temperature. Just below the border of mohorovichich it reaches, according to some estimates, 120 degrees C. "This is tantalizingly close to the upper limit of the known forms of life - 122 degrees", - said John Parkes from Cardiff University (UK).

However, Matt Shrenk from East Carolina University (USA) considers that the chances of finding mantle life are slim. The liquid circulation was very limited, and therefore the inflow of nutrients is very small.

Despite his doubts, Mr. Shrenk supports the project Mohole to Mantle, for he will help determine the physiological limits of life and even to study climate change, as the biosphere can affect the deep part of the carbon cycle. Further investigation may also be useful in medicine as a local pests can have a unique enzymes or to carry out an unprecedented effort on the surface of biological processes.

Samples mantle will also unravel the riddles about the role of microbial life in the evolution of the planet. A recent study Geophysics Norman Slip from Stanford University (USA) showed that life can go deep in the crust, and its products (such as ammonium) can infiltrate even lower. In fact, all of the nitrogen in the mantle came from the ammonia produced by organic substances. This increases the likelihood that life at the dawn of the history of the Earth changed the composition of the mantle and that the samples, which allows to study the period are still there.

But back to the technical part of the project. Mr. Tip compares the drilling of six-kilometre wells in the Pacific ocean with the lowering of the steel threads about the thickness of a human hair in the pool two-meter depth, after which the wire will have to prodolbit the Foundation for another three meters. Simply put, you will have to make Boer, what was not in the world.

And not only in length but also in the material drill. When drilling holes width of 30 cm in hard igneous rocks with a speed of 1 m/h head lives only about 50 hours. And the teeth can grind off even faster. New super-rigid material will also be able to withstand 2 kbar and temperatures up to 250 C.

Fortunately, a report released in 2011, the firm Blade Energy, says that the project is technically feasible. "Usually happens Vice versa, " says Mr. Tip. - Engineer something invents and then wondered whether it will be good scientists. And lately science runs ahead of the technology."

Another problem is Finance. The need for money so much, that without political will is necessary. Only one operation of the vessel "Tiko" will cost $1 billion the Government of Japan took the lion's share of the costs, because the project eventually could help predict earthquakes. Other countries have also expressed interest.

If all financial matters will be resolved in the next year, they hope to reach the mantle during the decade. Yet, by the way, to choose one of the three sites. They are all located in the Pacific ocean (one of the candidates - the place where drilled predecessors of the project Mohole), and each is located relatively close to the mid-ocean ridges, where a new bark. Rising magma increases the seabed, so there is relatively little. Also breed there are relatively cold. Finally, the crust is formed quite quickly, and then it is quite homogeneous, which also simplifies the task.

Prepared by mAmaterials NewScientist.