What Is Paleo Oceanography?

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After that first trip, the next step was for scientists to build their own chip. But they ran out of funding and then there was all this infighting and eventually the project ended. The scientists did not reach the mohoe, but they did develop a totally new way to bring up samples from the bottom of the ocean. It changed the way we saw the earth. For example, it created a whole new field, which is actually Suzanne's field. Paleo oceanography. She gets on these research vessels. She says it's kind of like going to summer camp.

Sixty years ago, geologists tried to drill down through the Earth’s crust to pull up a piece of the Earth’s mantle. Their mission didn’t go exactly as planned. But it sowed the seeds for a new field of science that’s helped us rewrite not only the history of the planet, but, potentially, our definitions of life itself.

The documentaries featured in this episode are "The First Deep Ocean Drilling: Mohole, Phase 1" and "Project Mohole: Report No. 1."

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