Deepest Mantle Rock Recovered Off Atlantic, Yet Moho Remains Uncrossed
A team aboard the JOIDES Resolution drilled 1,268 meters near the Lost City hydrothermal field, retrieving abyssal peridotite and harzburgite—the deepest mantle-like rock ever recovered—without crossing the crust–mantle Moho boundary. The findings advance understanding of the upper mantle and serpentinization, but the mission ended not from rock failure or depth limits; it was due to the operations window ending, and funding has since been cut for further mantle sampling, potentially slowing progress in deep-mantle research.
