Deep robots

Robots dive to unlock the secret of the Earth’s crust.

University of Durham scientists are planning to use robots to explore the depths of the Atlantic Ocean in an attempt to better understand underwater volcanoes.
 
Setting out from Ponta Delgada in the Azores, the team of 12 scientists -  led by Durham - will set sail aboard the Royal Research Ship James Cook on the five week expedition.
 
The team plan to use explorer and ISIS robots to collect data. The explorer robots will be used to map individual volcanoes on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge tectonic plate boundary, while the ISIS robots will collect rock samples from the volcanoes. The information gathered will be used to gain an understanding of the growth of the Earth’s crust. 

Reforming the Earth’s floor

Commenting on the mission, principal investigator Professor Roger Searle said: “The problem is that we don’t know how fast these volcanoes form or if they all come from melting the same piece of mantle rock.
 
“The ridges may form quickly, perhaps in just 10,000 years (about the time since the end of the last Ice Age) with hundreds of thousands of years inactivity before the next one forms, or they may take half-a-million years to form, the most recent having begun before the rise of modern humans.
 
“Understanding the processes forming the crust is important, because the whole ocean floor, some 60 per cent of the Earth’s surface, has been recycled and re-formed many times over the Earth’s history.”
 

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