SCIENTISTS drilling a borehole into Iceland's rocky crust to explore new methods of using geothermal energy have run into molten rock at a depth of 2.1 km. The drill string got stuck, but the circulation of cold water through the drill string was maintained and it was pulled out. This is only the third time that magma is known to have flowed into a geothermal drill hole. In 2005, a research project in Hawaii hit magma, preventing further drilling, and in 1977 magma erupted out the top of a producing geothermal well in the same area of Iceland. Given past precedents, this latest incident casts doubt over the future of the Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP).
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