Scientists successfully drill into Earth's mantle.

Scientists have drilled nearly a mile beneath the ocean floor at an underwater mountain in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and pulled up pieces of Earth’s rocky mantle. The mantle is what fuels plate tectonics in the crust, giving rise to mountains, volcanoes, and earthquakes. The drill yielded tube after tube of dark rock, many of them surprisingly complete. The team had taken rock samples from as deep as 4,157 feet below the seafloor. The achievement has electrified geoscientists, who for decades have dreamed of punching through miles of Earth’s crust to sample the mysterious realm that makes up most of the planet.