Chapter 162: Gate Of Hell
Modern seismology and geophysics research shows that the chemical composition of the crust and the mantle is starkly different.
The crust is mainly composed of granite, andesite, basalt, etc., with chemical composition primarily consisting of elements such as silicon, aluminum, sodium, potassium, which have relatively lower melting points.
Whereas the mantle is mainly composed of olivine, rich in relatively higher elements such as magnesium and iron.
The two Earth layers are distinctly separated.
The reason for this is still due to the rock movement inside the Earth.
The mantle temperature is extremely high, reaching over 1000 degrees Celsius. This temperature cannot melt elements with higher melting points, meaning the mantle is also mainly composed of rock, not the liquid lava that people commonly imagine.
But rocks rich in certain elements have lower melting points. Thus, compared to peridotite, granite, andesite, etc., are easier to melt into lava.
Lava has stronger fluidity, making it easier to erupt out, and eventually cool and solidify, forming the current Earth’s crust and the vast land visible to people’s eyes.
In the long evolution over billions of years, elements with lower melting points were continuously eliminated, while higher ones were continuously purified, ultimately forming such a distinctly layered structure.
And at this moment, drilling to a depth of over 20,000 meters underground has reached olivine rich in elements such as magnesium and iron, which almost undoubtedly proves that we have drilled through the crust!
This news was immediately transmitted to the Apocalypse Project Command. At this moment, everyone’s spirit was uplifted.
In the early stage of this cycle, people had already basically confirmed through the judgment of numerous experts that the cause of the global cataclysmic earthquake lies in the mantle layer.
Now that the crust has been penetrated, it means we are very likely to confirm the true cause of the severe earthquake within the next few short days.
As long as the cause is known, whether we can solve it in this life or not, it means significant progress has been made in this cycle’s exploration of the apocalypse.
Even if it can’t be solved in this life, letting Jiang Yang bring the relevant conclusions to the next life—humans in the next life will have more preparation time, greatly increasing the hope of ultimately solving the apocalypse!
Amid the excitement, the remaining 7 drilling bases were still busy at work.
Penetrating the crust is already extremely close to the end of this mission, with only one remaining obstacle that is not too difficult or troublesome to break through.
Mohorovičić discontinuity, abbreviated as Moho discontinuity.
It is the interface or transition surface between the crust and the mantle.
If the Earth is compared to an egg, the crust is the eggshell, the mantle is the egg white, and the Moho discontinuity is the thin membrane separating the eggshell and egg white.
In different parts of the Earth, the thickness of the Moho discontinuity varies, but it is usually on the order of a few hundred meters. The thinnest places are only tens of meters.
At this moment, as long as this last obstacle of tens to a few hundred meters is crossed, creations from the human world will for the first time in history directly touch the mantle!
At 21,000 meters underground.
In the high-concentration toxic gas, high-temperature rocks emit a dim red glow due to their own temperature, like molten iron.
The pressure is unimaginably high. Even though it has been drilled open here, losing the pressure from the rocks above, merely due to the depth and the accumulation of too much air above, the pressure has reached over 1000 times sea-level atmospheric pressure.
If a human body came here, it would be crushed flat in an instant.
Moreover, at this moment, to counteract rock creep pressure and cooling, and to eliminate rock debris, people have to continuously pump higher-pressure argon gas underground, raising the pressure on the drill bit to 5000 times atmospheric pressure.
In comparison, the pressure at the bottom of the Earth’s deepest trench, the Mariana Trench, is only equivalent to about 1100 times atmospheric pressure, far inferior to here.
In this environment filled with toxic gas, dust, smoke, high temperature and pressure, with dark red glow everywhere, like hell, the drill bit made of special materials is still working frantically.
In this process, through analysis of dust samples, it was found that the rock components such as basalt and andesite are gradually decreasing, while the peridotite component is gradually increasing.
In this process, another drilling equipment failed and fell in the dawn before dawn. The remaining 6 crust bases also reported detecting olivine components.
The entire project of drilling through the crust and entering the mantle has entered the final sprint stage.
Finally, with only 7 days left before the apocalypse arrives, the peridotite content has risen to an unprecedented proportion.
After joint judgment by numerous geologists and geophysicists, a definitive conclusion was presented to everyone.
The crust has truly been drilled through by us, and the Moho discontinuity has also been truly breached. The current Drill No. 115 has truly accomplished a feat never achieved since the birth of humanity.
Reaching the mantle!
At this moment, Jiang Yang was also uplifted.
This means humanity can finally extend its detection power below the crust, directly probe the mantle, and thereby directly obtain data that may contain the mystery of the global cataclysmic earthquake!
Although only 7 days remain, if the truth of the apocalypse can be figured out, we are not necessarily unable to find a way to solve the apocalypse before it arrives.
The mantle detectors, long since researched and manufactured, were carefully lowered along the drill pipe to the depths of 21 kilometers underground.
Although this detector has been rigorously designed, fully considering the environment, and made with special materials, because it needs to directly contact mantle substance and conduct detection, the expected operation time for such a detector costing over 10 billion human currency is still only 5 hours.
It’s probably impossible to burn money this fast even directly.
But at this moment, no one cares about this consumption.
In the warehouse of the factory affiliated with the special equipment research institute, over 100 detectors of the same specification are already piled up, and the number is still rapidly increasing.
Shortly after the first detector was sent down, the second crust base, the third, up to the sixth, also announced reaching the mantle.
This result is much better than people initially expected.
Initially, people only hoped for 4 super deep wells, but now, we have exceeded that by 50%.
This way, with more data, the overall research on mantle movement inside the Earth will be more accurate.
With 5 days left before the apocalypse, the first batch of comprehensive mantle data was generated and sent to the expert team composed of all top geophysicists, geologists, solid-state physicists, etc., from around the world.
Amid countless people’s expectations, data analysis and discussion work commenced.
