Scientific drilling
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Scientific drilling into the Earth is a way for scientists to probe the Earth's
Like probes sent into
Scientific drilling is interdisciplinary and international in scope. Individual scientists cannot generally undertake scientific drilling projects alone. Teamwork between scientists, engineers, and administrators is often required for success in planning and in carrying out a drilling project, analyzing the samples, and interpreting and publishing the results in scientific journals.
Purposes
Scientific drilling is used to address a wide range of problems, which cannot be addressed using rocks exposed on the surface or the seafloor. The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program has a broad set of research objectives, which can be divided into three principal themes:
- The nature of the deep biosphere and the oceanic sub-seafloor
- Understanding environmental change, processes and effects
- Cycles and geodynamics of the solid Earth
ICDP focuses on scientific drilling to address the following questions about the history, chemistry, and physics of Earth and the biosphere:
- What are the physical and chemical processes responsible for volcaniceruptions, and what are the best ways to minimize their effects?
- How has Earth's climate changedin the recent past and what are the reasons for such changes?
- What have been the effects of meteorite impacts (mass extinctionsof life?
- What is the nature of the deep biosphere and its relation to geologic processes such as hydrocarbon maturation, ore deposition and evolution of life on Earth?
- What are the ways to safely dispose of radioactive and other toxic waste materials?
- How do sedimentary basins and fossil fuel resources originate and evolve?
- How do mineral, and metal ore deposits form?
- What are the fundamental physics of plate tectonics and heat, mass, and fluid transfer through Earth's crust?
- How can people better interpret geophysical data used to determine the structure and properties of Earth's crust?
Deepest drillings
The
Ocean drilling
The
References
- ^ "Connate Fluids". World News. Retrieved 2017-04-27.