Just saw this on Slashdot. Some Japanese scientists are aiming to be the 1st to make a hole through the Earth's crust and get to the mantle. They are hoping to use this research to possibly discover life down there, better understand undersea earthquakes, and uncover records of climate change.

This is a pretty cool prospect to me. I hope that the team gets their "Chikyu" (Japanese for Earth) drill down there. I doubt this will be an adventure of Verneian proportions, but it is nice to see that there is a frontier on Earth that still hasn't been conquered by man.

"Humans have brought back lunar rocks to understand the universe, yet we have never reached the mantle which accounts for most of earth."