Geologists drill into fossil magma under intact ocean crust for the first time

Gabbro, a hard, black rock that forms by slow cooling of the molten magma trapped beneath Earth’s surface has been discovered for the first time under intact ocean crust.

It is aboard the research drilling ship JOIDES Resolution, scientists have drilled into a fossil magma chamber 1.4 kilometers beneath the sea floor. Boring that deep is no joke! The drilling took five long months. Twenty-five hardened steel and tungsten carbide drill bits were required to complete the job.

Geophysicist Doug Wilson of the University of California at Santa Barbara said,

(Getting there) is a rare opportunity to calibrate geophysical measurements with direct observations of real rocks.

Via: Science Daily