The Earth's Interior: A New Frontier and a New Challenge for Earth Scientists

Abstract

In this era of space exploration, deep expeditions to the ocean bottom and far viewing telescopes, the Earth's interior has emerged as one of the most challenging frontier areas for scientific investigation. Exploration of the crust, by seismic and other means, is well underway but our view of the underlying mantle and core is fuzzy. Plate tectonic theory has revolutionized Earth Science but we still do not understand the driving mechanism or why global processes change with time. The origins of the magnetic field, volcanism, earthquakes, mineral resources and mountain building processes are related to processes in the deep interior. Planetary exploration has opened up the new science of comparative planetology and yet, the most fundamental questions regarding the origin, evolution and composition of the Earth are unresolved because of our ignorance of the characteristics of most of our planet, the interior. The time is now ripe to make an integrated study of the Earth as a Planet or, in space age jargon, to undertake a mission to Planet Earth. There are several recent developments which make this timely.

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