In a groundbreaking achievement, a team of international scientists has successfully retrieved a significant section of rock from the Earth’s mantle, marking a new era in the study of our planet’s inner workings. The mantle, located beneath the Earth’s crust and constituting the largest part of the planet, holds key secrets about the origins of life, volcanic activity, and global cycles of crucial elements like carbon and hydrogen. The recovery of these rocks represents the deepest subsea drilling operation ever undertaken, providing an unprecedented opportunity to study the mantle directly.

The expedition, known as the “Building Blocks of Life, Atlantis Massif” (Expedition 399), took place in the spring of 2023 aboard the JOIDES Resolution, a specialized ocean drilling vessel. The team managed to extract an almost continuous core of mantle rock, stretching 1,268 meters, from a “tectonic window” along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This region of the ocean floor is where mantle rocks have been exposed due to tectonic activity, allowing scientists to access material from the Earth’s interior without drilling through the overlying crust.

The International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), an international marine research consortium comprising over 20 countries, led the expedition. The IODP has a long history of extracting sediment and rock cores from the ocean floor to study Earth’s history, but this latest achievement sets a new record. Previous attempts to retrieve mantle rock date back to the 1960s, making this successful extraction a monumental milestone in Earth sciences.

Expedition 399
Expedition 399 “Building Blocks of Life, Atlantis Massif” of the ocean drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution that recovered the 1,268 m of rock from the almost continuous mantle in the spring of 2023. Credit: Thomas Ronge (Exp. 399, JRSO_IODP)

Since the recovery, the expedition team has been meticulously cataloging the mantle rocks to analyze their composition, structure, and context. Their initial findings, published in the journal Science, reveal surprising details about the mantle’s composition.

The rocks exhibited signs of more extensive melting than previously expected. Professor Johan Lissenberg from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, who led the study, highlighted that the rocks contain much less pyroxene—a mineral expected to be more prevalent—and have unusually high magnesium concentrations. These findings suggest that the mantle material underwent higher degrees of melting as it rose from deeper parts of the Earth toward the surface.

This melting process, which occurred as the mantle ascended, could have significant implications for understanding how magma forms and triggers volcanic activity. The researchers also identified channels through which magma traveled within the mantle, offering a clearer picture of how this material makes its way to the Earth’s surface. This information is particularly important for understanding underwater volcanism, which accounts for the majority of volcanic activity on Earth.

Professor Johan Lissenberg (left) and his colleagues analyze the nuclei, which recovered from a
Professor Johan Lissenberg (left) and his colleagues analyze the nuclei, which recovered from a “tectonic window” in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Credit: Lesley Anderson, Exp. 399, JRSO_IODP

Beyond volcanic processes, the study offers new insights into the chemical interactions between mantle rocks and seawater, particularly involving the mineral olivine. These reactions can produce hydrogen and other molecules that may have been crucial in the origins of life on Earth. The mantle rocks recovered during this expedition are thought to resemble those present on early Earth, providing a unique window into the chemical and physical environments that might have fostered the development of life billions of years ago.

Dr. Susan Q. Lang, a geologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and co-chief scientist of the expedition, emphasized that studying these rocks gives researchers a critical understanding of the early Earth. This knowledge could help identify the environmental conditions that sustained life over long geological periods.

The international team of over 30 scientists will continue to analyze the recovered core samples to explore a broad range of questions, from mantle melting processes to the interplay between rocks and the ocean, organic geochemistry, and even microbiology. Dr. Andrew McCaig from the University of Leeds, who co-led the expedition, remarked that the new deep-sea drilling site will serve as a reference for future studies, with data from the expedition being made fully available to the global scientific community.

SOURCES

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

C. Johan Lissenberg et al., A long section of serpentinized depleted mantle peridotite. Science385, 623-629(2024). DOI:10.1126/science.adp1058

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