drilling rigs we don't need., page-2

Geojac,

And then after that we would have to dig a canal from Port Augusta to get it to the Cooper Basin. An added bonus would be the free water flow connection with the Southern Ocean. How far would the water have to flow uphill?

The Mantle Quest Project for the Chikyu ship sounds really fascinating. Is that actually a goer? This is not the first time that drilling to the mohorovisic discontinuity has been attempted. The US were going to do it in the Pacific Ocean in the 1970s using the drilling ship Glomar Challenger. (What happened to that?) The Russians were not to be outdone and had a land based drilling project that went on for about 10 years in mid 1980s and reached > 14 000m (? memory gets vague). They gave up when in between drill bit changes the hole disappeared at the bottom due to thermoplastic effects!

Besides gaining a wealth of geological knowlege what commercial benefits might there be in drilling such a hole?

Juke