Jules Verne Moves to Japan

I love an exciting, ground breaking scientific project as much as anyone. Sometimes, however, I think that researchers can get a little bit too "groundbreaking." The Japanese have a trick up their sleeves which is at once exciting but also rather worrying. Next year they are apparently planning on sending a drilling machine more than three and a half miles down from the ocean floor to try to punch through the mantle of the Earth.

Japanese scientists are to explore the centre of the Earth. Using a giant drill ship launched next month, the researchers aim to be the first to punch a hole through the rocky crust that covers our planet and to reach the mantle below.

The team wants to retrieve samples from the mantle, six miles down, to learn more about what triggers undersea earthquakes, such as the one off Sumatra that caused the Boxing Day tsunami. They hope to study the deep rocks and mud for records of past climate change and to see if the deepest regions of Earth could harbour life.

Aside from seismological and tectonic data, what are these guys trying to find? Would you believe the origins of life?

Asahiko Taira, director general of the Centre for Deep Earth Exploration in Yokohama, near Tokyo, said: "One of the main purposes of doing this is finding deep bacteria within the ocean crust and upper mantle. We believe there has to be life there. It's the same mission as searching for life on Mars."

Rocks in the upper mantle produce compounds essential for life when they react with seawater. "This is a system which we believe created early life. There may be a chance that we can catch the origin of life still taking place today," Prof Taira said.

Yes, it's very exciting. At the same time, (and I'm no scientist so I'm probably speaking way out of turn here) I have to wonder about the wisdom of drilling a vent down to the more explosive nether regions of the planet. Are you just asking for a new volcano to pop up, possibly spurring even more seismic activity, tsunamis, etc.? Well, I'm sure they already thought of that.

They're caling their digger a "drill ship" but I assume it's unmanned. Who wants to volunteer to be the pilot for this thing? Yikes.