Reborn Before the Apocalypse: My Backing is the Nation

Chapter 162 Gate of Hell
Modern seismological and geophysical studies have shown that the Earth's crust and mantle have completely different chemical compositions.

The Earth's crust is mainly composed of granite, andesite, basalt, etc., and its chemical composition is mainly elements with relatively low melting points, such as silicon, aluminum, sodium, and potassium.

The mantle, on the other hand, is mainly composed of olivine and is rich in relatively high amounts of elements such as magnesium and iron.

The two Earth-level systems are clearly distinct.

This is due to the movement of rocks inside the Earth.

The Earth's mantle has extremely high temperatures, reaching over 1000 degrees Celsius. These temperatures cannot melt elements with high melting points, meaning the mantle is primarily composed of rock, not the liquid magma commonly imagined.

However, rocks rich in certain elements have lower melting points. Therefore, compared to peridotite, granite, andesite are more likely to melt into magma.

Magma is more fluid, making it easier to erupt. It eventually cools and solidifies, forming the Earth's crust and the vast land that we see today.

Over billions of years of evolution, elements with lower melting points were continuously eliminated, while elements with higher melting points were continuously purified, eventually forming such a distinct layered structure.

At this moment, the discovery of olivine, rich in elements such as magnesium and iron, at a depth of more than 20,000 meters underground, is almost conclusive proof that we have now penetrated the earth's crust!

The news reached the Doomsday Project command center immediately. At that moment, everyone's spirits were lifted.

In the early stages of this cycle, through the judgment of numerous experts, it was basically confirmed that the cause of the global massive earthquakes lies in the mantle layer.

Having breached the earth's crust at this moment means that our side is very likely to confirm the true cause of the powerful earthquake within the next few days.

Knowing the cause means that, regardless of whether our side can ultimately resolve it in this life, it signifies a major breakthrough in this end-of-the-world exploration.

Even if it can't be solved in this life, let Jiang Yang carry the relevant conclusions to the next life—the next generation of humans will have more time to prepare, and the hope of finally solving the apocalypse will greatly increase!

Amidst this excitement, the remaining seven drilling bases are still busy with their work.

Breaking through the earth's crust is already very close to the end of this mission. There is only one obstacle left to overcome, which is neither particularly difficult nor troublesome.

Mohorovičić discontinuity, or simply Mohorovičić discontinuity.

It is the interface, or transitional surface, between the Earth's crust and mantle.

If we compare the Earth to an egg, the crust is the eggshell, the mantle is the egg white, and the Mohorovičić discontinuity is the thin membrane that separates the eggshell from the egg white.

The thickness of the Mohorovičić discontinuity varies in different parts of the Earth, but it is usually around several hundred meters. In the thinnest places, it is only a few tens of meters thick.

At this moment, if we can overcome this final obstacle of tens to hundreds of meters, the creations of the human world will directly touch the mantle for the first time in history!
2.1 meters underground.

In the presence of high concentrations of toxic gases, the hot rocks, which were not originally luminous, emitted a dim red glow due to their own temperature, like molten iron.

The pressure was unimaginably high. Even though the area had been hollowed out and the pressure from the rocks above had been removed, the pressure was still over 1000 times the atmospheric pressure at sea level simply because of the depth and the large amount of air accumulated above.

If a human body comes here, it will be crushed in an instant.

Moreover, to counteract the pressure of rock creep and to cool the area, as well as to remove rock debris, people have to constantly release argon gas at even higher pressure into the ground, increasing the pressure on the drill bit to 5000 times the atmospheric pressure. In comparison, the pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest trench on Earth, is only equivalent to 1100 times the atmospheric pressure, far less than this.

In this hellish environment filled with toxic gas, dust, smoke, high temperature and pressure, and glowing with a dark red light, the drill bit made of special materials continued to work frantically.

During this process, through analysis of collected dust samples, it was found that the rock composition of basalt and andesite was gradually decreasing, while the composition of peridotite was gradually increasing.

During this process, another drilling rig broke down, falling before dawn. The remaining six crustal bases also reported finding olivine composition in their analyses.

The entire project to drill through the Earth's crust and into the mantle has entered its final sprint stage.

Finally, with only 7 days left until the end of the world, the content of peridot increased to an unprecedented level.

After joint assessment by numerous geologists and geophysicists, an irrefutable conclusion has been presented to the public.

We have truly drilled through the Earth's crust, and the Moho discontinuity has been breached. Today, drilling rig No. 115 has accomplished a feat never before achieved since the dawn of humankind.

Reaching the mantle!

At this moment, Jiang Yang was equally excited.

This means that humanity can finally extend its detection capabilities beneath the Earth's crust, directly probe the mantle, and thus directly obtain data that may contain the secrets of global high-intensity earthquakes!

Although there are only 7 days left, if we can figure out the truth about the apocalypse, we may still be able to find a way to resolve it before it arrives.

The mantle detector, which had been developed and manufactured long ago, was carefully placed 21 kilometers underground along the drill rod.

Although this probe has undergone rigorous design, fully considered its environment, and is made of special materials, because it needs to directly contact the mantle material to conduct exploration, such a probe, which costs more than 10 billion RMB, is expected to operate for only 5 hours.

I doubt even burning through money directly could burn through it this quickly.

But at this moment, nobody cares about this little bit of energy expenditure.

In the warehouse of the affiliated factory of the Special Equipment Research Institute, more than 100 detectors of the same specifications have been piled up, and the number is still increasing rapidly.

Shortly after the first probe was launched, the second, third, and all the way up to the sixth probes announced that they had reached the mantle.

This result is much better than people initially expected.

Initially, people only hoped for four ultra-deep wells, but now they have exceeded that goal by 50%.

This will result in a larger volume of data, leading to a more accurate overall study of the Earth's mantle motion.

With five days left until the end of the world, the first batch of comprehensive mantle data was generated and sent to an expert team that brought together the world's top geophysicists, geologists, solid-state physicists and other top scientists.

Amidst much anticipation, the data analysis and discussion work commenced.

(End of this chapter)