Hey!

[orb2069]

I've got a great idea! Let's melt holes in the earth's crust with radioactive spheres just to see what happens! I'm sure it won't piss the mole people off at all.

Ahhh, The soviets It's amazing what scientists can accomplish when they're not being held back by, well, anything?

Comments

[orv]

That's actually quite a clever idea. It might even work if you could afford to ignore possible issues with, say, contaminating groundwater. I'm thinking you'd also want to be pretty sure there were no natural gas pockets underneath the test area or things could get quite exciting around the test hole.

EDIT: Thinking this through some more, the obvious challenge -- environmental concerns aside -- would be keeping the capsule intact. If you don't keep it intact, it ends up like the Chernobyl core did -- diluting itself with inert molten material until it no longer produces enough heat to keep itself molten. I'm guessing they must address this in the paper because it's the obvious flaw in the idea.

[orb2069]

IIRC The paper suggests a 'small'(under 1m dia.) sphere of tungsten as the capsule. Apparently it's capable of being heated high enough above rock that it'll be able to melt and self-sink through groundwater-infiltrated basalt, which they felt was the worst case scenario. The rate is supposed to be something on the rate of a meters per year, so it's not just going to go 'bloop!', but that gives the seismologists more time to study the effects.

[orv]

Interesting stuff. It seems relatively safe, too; once the capsule is below the deepest aquifers there really isn't any way contamination could reach the surface, even if it fractured.

Re: Hey!

[passingphase]

Re: Hey!

[orb2069]

Re: Hey!

[passingphase]

Well, I never!

Re: Hey!

[orb2069]

I was THERE when you got your last piggy back ride, remember?