Scientists to Drill a Well to Earth's Center in Search of Life's Origins

In particular, and beyond our planet.

About 20 years ago, at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, a well was drilled to the center of the Earth. This April, scientists plan to deepen it by more than 600 meters. This was reported to The Wall Street Journal by the head of the new expedition, geologist Peter Blum.

He noted that in the spring, the hole in the massif in the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean, which rises about 4,300 meters above the seafloor, is planned to be deepened. For this, drilling tools will be submerged to a depth of about 1,645 meters.

The massif was chosen deliberately. It represents a tectonic window where diverging plates expose deeper layers of the Earth's crust. By drilling such rocks, scientists can study parts of the Earth's internal structure that are difficult to access under other conditions.

This time, the plan is to penetrate to a depth where it is believed that seawater and minerals mix, and to determine whether this connection could have been a source of the emergence of life on Earth and other planets.

If organic molecules are found at such depths, it will confirm the theory that such reactions contribute to the emergence of living organisms even despite extremely high temperatures. In the new deepest point of the well, this temperature could exceed 200 degrees Celsius.

Deepening the well will be challenging. Engineers will need to lower heavy drilling rigs to a great depth and locate a hole about 38 centimeters wide on the ocean floor. Joides engineers compared this process to trying to lower a pencil tied to the end of a rope into the neck of a soda bottle using a fan, while standing on a chair.

The current depth of the well is 1,400 meters. Its target depth is 2,057 meters. For this, the drilling rig must approach the center of the Earth by more than half a kilometer.