Reborn Before the Apocalypse: My Backing is the Nation

Chapter 143 Breaking Through the Earth's Crust!

As the leading expert recounted his story, several images spontaneously appeared in Jiang Yang's mind.

He seemed to see a steel plate, held firmly in place by countless jacks. But the steel plate itself was fixed in place and could not be moved.

With all the jacks working together, the tough steel plate was finally broken through.

Originally maintaining its complete structure, it suddenly shattered into millions of pieces, and in the process of shattering, it unleashed a powerful shockwave.

As a result, places that were originally in geologically stable zones and, according to current theories, should never experience earthquakes, suddenly began to shake violently.

A powerful earthquake, unlike any other, struck the globe.

He couldn't help but look down at the ground beneath his feet.

There was a smooth floor. He knew that beneath the floor was concrete, then soil and rock, and below that was the scorching mantle, where endless changes were taking place that humanity could not yet comprehend.

He seemed to sense a tremendous energy gathering beneath the seemingly stable ground, constantly brewing and accumulating, waiting for its final eruption.

Jiang Yang knew very well that, at this moment, human civilization did not know more about the interior of the Earth than about the universe.

The expert continued in a low voice: "Based on current geological research, we believe that such superplume eruptions have occurred on Earth before."

The eruption of the supervolcanoes that caused the Permian-Triassic extinction event about 2.5 million years ago may have been caused by a superplume.

But if our current apocalypse is also caused by a superplume, then the scale and power of this eruption will be more than a thousand times greater than the Permian-Triassic mass extinction.

More than a thousand times...

This number weighed heavily on Jiang Yang's heart.

"The second possibility is abnormal changes in the Earth's core."

The expert continued, "The Earth's core is divided into an inner core and an outer core. The inner core is solid, while the outer core is liquid. According to research, the Earth's inner core is slowly growing, through the crystallization of iron in the outer core."

However, some existing research data suggests that the growth of the Earth's core may be accelerating.

Imagine this scenario: if, for some unknown reason, the Earth's core suddenly and asymmetrically grows rapidly and uncontrollably, the distribution of matter inside the Earth would undergo drastic changes in a short period of time, thereby affecting the Earth's rotation.

According to the principle of conservation of angular momentum, this change will inevitably accumulate a large amount of stress, which will then propagate through the mantle to the crust.

If this change is rapid and drastic enough, the eventual stress release process will instantly cause violent shaking of the entire Earth's crust, resulting in massive earthquakes that occur all over the globe.

Of course, this is just our speculation and cannot be confirmed at this stage.

The third possibility is that multiple giant continental plates moved simultaneously.

When a subducting plate plunges into the mantle, it is affected by mineral phase transitions, causing plate material to accumulate in this area, creating a 'mantle transition zone'.

Now, suppose we imagine a scenario where the energy accumulated from the subduction of all the Earth's tectonic plates reaches a critical value and suddenly explodes at a certain moment. All the plates simultaneously break through the resistance of the mantle transition zone, causing all the plates to rapidly subduct into the mantle at the same time. This could also lead to a sudden burst of violent energy, resulting in massive earthquakes that are felt all over the world.

The above three possibilities are conjectures based on existing research data and have a certain scientific basis.

The fourth hypothesis lies outside of science. Perhaps some mechanism heated the Earth's core, or perhaps it's some kind of motion whose principles we don't yet understand...

There are far too many factors involved, and we cannot make a definitive judgment on this matter.

The leading expert concluded his presentation. Jiang Yang knew that this was a judgment from the highest level of wisdom in geophysics, geology, and related disciplines, encompassing the entire globe and all of humanity.

Even if it sounds far-fetched or unreasonable, it is the most probable conclusion that can be drawn with current human technology.

The Reaper civilization most likely triggered a massive global earthquake through one of these possibilities, thus completing yet another harvest of human civilization.

As for why they always insist on killing the vast majority of people in a short period of time during each harvest, Jiang Yang cannot make a judgment on this for the time being, and it is not important at the moment, so it can be ignored for the time being.

"So... how do we confirm that it's one of these four possibilities? No, let's ignore the fourth possibility for now. How do we confirm which of the first three possibilities it is?"

Jiang Yang asked this crucial question.

That leading geophysicist was clearly prepared for this.

"First, let's talk about satellites."

We need to launch a large number of Earth exploration satellites into space as soon as possible to comprehensively map and monitor minute surface deformations, and to measure plate movements, crustal deformations, changes in the Earth's gravitational field, and changes in the Earth's magnetic field. We can use these changes to indirectly explore changes inside the Earth and find relevant clues.

Secondly, establish a comprehensive global helium isotope monitoring system.

Specifically, a large number of automated sampling and analysis observation stations will be established in geologically active areas such as volcanoes, rift valleys, and major fault zones around the world to automatically analyze the helium-3 and helium-4 content in samples.

Of these, helium-3 mainly originates from the mantle, while helium-4 mainly originates from radioactive decay in the Earth's crust. Monitoring changes in these two isotopes can reveal some changes deep within the Earth.

Based on comprehensive assessment, we need at least one million monitoring stations.

Third, detectors are installed in a large number of deep wells around the world to detect minute strains in underground rocks, fluid activity, heat flow, stress, etc., while conducting deep underground seismic wave analysis.

According to preliminary statistics, there are currently about 3000 wells worldwide that meet the exploration requirements and have a depth of more than 6000 meters.

These wells will all be equipped with high-performance detectors for exploration.

Fourth, artificially create a large number of seismic sources and use seismic waves to comprehensively detect the flow of underground materials.

All four methods mentioned above require a network connection, using a supercomputer to collect, calculate, monitor, and simulate the movement of deep Earth materials in order to search for subtle clues.

Jiang Yang knew that the exploration projects mentioned by this expert meant an enormous amount of work.

More than a thousand satellites, more than a million gas monitoring stations, full-scale deployment of deep well exploration, and mass production of seismic sources—each of these represents a huge investment of resources and manpower.

In other words, now that a world government has been established, it can coordinate and allocate global resources, making it possible for these projects to be promoted in a unified manner in a short period of time.

but……

The leading expert took a deep breath: "Although the above projects are large in scale, they only belong to conventional detection methods."

It can only be used as an aid at best; it cannot play a decisive role in verifying those three unprecedented conjectures.

To truly obtain decisive data that helps us determine what is happening inside the Earth, we must do one thing.

We must dig an unprecedentedly deep well before the end of the world, penetrate the Earth's crust, and directly probe the mantle!
Furthermore, one bite isn't enough; globally, at least four bites are needed.

A bitter look appeared on his face, and he slowly shook his head: "But, but..."

(End of this chapter)