Deep Sea News : How Did That Get There?

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Craig is temporarily a post-doctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who is looking for a permanent position. He spends most of his time balancing his overwhelming geekdom with normalcy so he can function in the real world. Luckily his wife likes his geekiness.

Peter Etnoyer is a Graduate Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He studies deep corals and ocean fronts, and he loves to be on the water.

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How Did That Get There?

Category: Expeditions
Posted on: March 5, 2007 2:26 PM, by CR McClain

An expedition to reveal the secrets of a mysterious huge hole at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean started overnight.

Comments

Is this the one where they build a vessel of "unobtanium", enter the oozing mantle, and bore to the core?

Posted by: Mustafa Mond, FCD | March 5, 2007 2:41 PM

Very cool - I had no idea such a hole existed. My only concern is that since the hole "defies conventional tectonic plate theories" it's just a matter of time until we hear something from the religious right along the lines of "See, scientists can't explain a giant hole in the earth. Clearly, all of geology is a crock and the Earth can't possibly be more than 6,000 yrs old." sigh.

Posted by: JLem | March 5, 2007 6:10 PM

I think that this could be the one where a huge swiss-cheese-like giant fish monster emerges, and terrified crowds scream: "Holey Mackerel!"

Posted by: Jonathan Vos Post | March 5, 2007 8:09 PM

Maybe the creationists will say that the mantle in the hole is the drain plug where all the flood waters went.

Posted by: natural cynic | March 5, 2007 10:30 PM

They're slighly hyping this, I think - it's not so much a 'hole' as 'stuff (mantle rocks) on the surface which is normally beneath something else (oceanic crust)', and although we're not really sure why that happens, this isn't the first time we've seen such a thing. The stories I've read are very vague on details, but I'd guess that it's associated with a fracture zone on the ridge, where the crust is always quite thin anyway.

Posted by: Chris Rowan | March 5, 2007 10:59 PM

Chris,
In researching the article I found surprisingly little, published papers or press releases, that gave more information. A diagram would have been nice. My take is similar to yours that it is not hole such much as a bare spot.

Posted by: CR McClain | March 6, 2007 4:04 AM

This is the best I link found - the map they have is waaaay to large scale to be at all useful, but from what they say it's a ridge segment close to a fracture zone where spreading seems to have occurred without much magmatism (and hence creation of oceanic crust).

Posted by: Chris Rowan | March 6, 2007 11:11 PM