Drilling into Earth's crust in search of answers


A team of scientists are hoping to retrieve the deepest types of rock ever extracted from beneath the seabed.

The drilling project, taking place off Costa Rica, will attempt to reach some 2km under the ocean floor.

The research team says its ultimate goal is to extract samples of rock from even further down, in the mantle layer below the Earth's crust.

One of the project's chief scientists, Benoit Ildefonse from the Montpellier University 2, spoke to the BBC about what the team hoped to learn, and how long the project would take.

