Project Mohole
Encyclopedia
Crust (geology)
In geology, the crust is the outermost solid shell of a rocky planet or natural satellite, which is chemically distinct from the underlying mantle...
into the Mohorovičić discontinuity
Mohorovicic discontinuity
The Mohorovičić discontinuity , usually referred to as the Moho, is the boundary between the Earth's crust and the mantle. Named after the pioneering Croatian seismologist Andrija Mohorovičić, the Moho separates both the oceanic crust and continental crust from underlying mantle...
, and to provide an Earth science complement to the high profile Space Race
Space Race
The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
. The project was initially led by the American Miscellaneous Society
American Miscellaneous Society
The American Miscellaneous Society was formed by Gordon Lill, of the Office of Naval Research, as an organization designed to collect various Earth science research ideas that were submitted by scientists to the U.S. Navy and didn't fit into any particular category. Membership in AMSOC was open...
(AMSOC) with funding from the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
.
Phase One was executed in spring 1961. Five holes were drilled off the coast of Guadalupe Island
Guadalupe Island
Guadalupe Island, or Isla Guadalupe is a volcanic island located 241 kilometers off the west coast of Mexico's Baja California peninsula and some 400 kilometers southwest of the city of Ensenada in Baja California state, in the Pacific Ocean...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, the deepest at 183 m (601 ft) below the sea floor in 3,500 m (11,700 ft) of water. This was unprecedented: not in the hole's depth but because of the depth of the ocean and because it was drilled from an untethered platform. Also, the core sample
Core sample
A core sample is a cylindrical section of a naturally occurring substance. Most core samples are obtained by drilling with special drills into the substance, for example sediment or rock, with a hollow steel tube called a core drill. The hole made for the core sample is called the "core hole". A...
proved valuable, penetrating through Miocene
Miocene
The Miocene is a geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about . The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell. Its name comes from the Greek words and and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene...
age sediments for the first time to reveal the lowest 13 m (44 ft) consisting of basalt
Basalt
Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...
.
Project Mohole contracted with Global Marine of Los Angeles for the use of its oil drillship CUSS I. A consortium of Continental, Union, Superior
Superior Oil Company
Superior Oil Company was an independent American oil company that is now part of ExxonMobil. Superior Oil was founded in 1921 in Coalinga, California by William Myron Keck, also founder of the W. M. Keck Foundation....
and Shell
Shell Oil Company
Shell Oil Company is the United States-based subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, a multinational oil company of Anglo Dutch origins, which is amongst the largest oil companies in the world. Approximately 22,000 Shell employees are based in the U.S. The head office in the U.S. is in Houston, Texas...
Oil Companies, CUSS had originally developed it in 1956 as a technological test bed for the nascent offshore oil industry. CUSS I was one of the first vessels in the world capable of drilling in water depth up to 3560 m (11,679.8 ft), while maintaining a position within a radius of 600 ft (182.9 m). Project Mohole expanded its operational range by inventing what is now known as dynamic positioning
Dynamic positioning
Dynamic positioning is a computer controlled system to automatically maintain a vessel's position and heading by using its own propellers and thrusters...
.
Phase One proved that both the technology and expertise were available to drill into the Earth's mantle. It was intended as the experimental phase of the project, and
did succeed in drilling to a depth of 601 feet below the sea floor . However, deeper drilling never took place: an attempted shift of operational control to NSF proved unsatisfactory, AMSOC dissolved itself, phase two of the project was
abandoned and the entire project discontinued by Congress, objecting to increasing costs in 1966.
See also
- Walter MunkWalter MunkWalter Heinrich Munk is an American physical oceanographer. He is professor of geophysics emeritus and holds the Secretary of the Navy/Chief of Naval Operations Oceanography Chair at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California.-Early life:Born in 1917 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary,...
- Ocean Drilling ProgramOcean Drilling ProgramThe Ocean Drilling Program was an international cooperative effort to explore and study the composition and structure of the Earth's ocean basins. ODP, which began in 1985, was the direct successor to the highly successful Deep Sea Drilling Project initiated in 1968 by the United States...
- Deep Sea Drilling ProgramDeep Sea Drilling ProgramThe Deep Sea Drilling Project was an ocean drilling project operated from 1968 to 1983. The program was considered to be successful as evidenced by the data and publications that have resulted from it and is now supported by Texas A&M University, although for the years of its operations these were...
- Integrated Ocean Drilling ProgramIntegrated Ocean Drilling ProgramThe Integrated Ocean Drilling Program is an international marine research program. The program uses heavy drilling equipment mounted aboard ships to monitor and sample sub-seafloor environments...
- Kola Superdeep BoreholeKola Superdeep BoreholeThe Kola Superdeep Borehole is the result of a scientific drilling project of the Soviet Union in Kola Peninsula. The project attempted to drill as deep as possible into the Earth's crust. Drilling began on 24 May 1970 using the Uralmash-4E, and later the Uralmash-15000 series drilling rig. A...