This is the equivalent of a Jurassic Park for magma studies

Dec 17, 2008 13:25 GMT  ·  By

Another lucky strike for science came in the form of an accidental discovery of magma, following the drill operations conducted in Hawaii by a commercial geologist. Magma has never before been studied in its original form, and the many computer models were built based on the properties inferred from its cooler, gas-free form that reaches the Earth's surface, known as lava. This fortunate event could provide specialists with the opportunity to study it in its natural habitat. The discovery is even more important, considering that the magma found is of a rare type named dacite.

Experts have a comprehensive knowledge of lava, but much less so about magma, the constantly recycling material that shaped the planetary crust. A better understanding of magma's properties and behavior could provide a deeper insight on the way continents were shaped. "This is how we built the Earth," explained Bruce Marsh, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at The Johns Hopkins University's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, as cited by Wired. "We built the Earth from very primitive materials, materials that remelted and remelted and distilled and eventually you get continental material."

 

"Magma resides inside the earth and lava is its equivalent on the surface. But once magma erupts, it begins cooling unusually quickly and it loses any gases that it may contain, so it really is a different animal," said Marsh, quoted by PhysOrg. "We've never seen, until now, the real animal in its natural habitat. And it's not going anywhere: it's caged, so to speak." Below the crust, magma reaches temperatures of over 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,900 degrees Fahrenheit).

 

Currently, scientists are assessing the best approach for the study, but most likely they will drill more holes and sink monitoring instruments in, hoping to get more data related to the magma's features. "The subsurface magma chamber could be convecting," shared geologist Peter Kelemen of the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. "That would be interesting."

 

"This is like Jurassic Park for magmatic systems," concluded Marsh. "You can go to museums and see dinosaur skeletons. But if a paleontologist could see a dinosaur frolicking in the open countryside, it would be absolutely spellbinding. And this is what it is for me to see this thing in its natural habitat," he said, adding that "This could be the first magma observatory in the Earth".