The anthropomorphic language is odd in this context, but nowhere in the article does it remotely suggest that humans are at fault...

Agreed.

But discoveries of massive anomolies like this just now indicate just how little we know about the Earth after millennia of exploration. Yet we have concluded we're running out of oil and have caused cataclysmic climate change as OJ points out frequently.

For all we know, there's a huge oil deposit right next to the hole and a bunch of carbon eating algae floating over it but it might take us another century to find them.

This article is so typical of so much scientific reporting in the popular press: inexact and muddled and riddled with terms used inmproperly and lacking in hard facts with opinions and subjectivity substituted. They can't even provide a simple map to show where the "wound" is located. Sheeh. Besides, "the crust does not seem to be repairing itself" talk doesn't explain what is there that makes it so unusual. Surely they can spend at least one paragraph on that.

Sounds like it may be simply a deeper than usual part of the spreading zone, or some sort of reverse-Iceland, where the activity is much lower than normal. And I don'[t get the deal about serpentinite, which is quite common along the San Andreas rift sone in Marin County, for example. (At least if I remember my geology field trips from decades ago...)

As Brother Boys points out, it's entirely typical that they have no clue what it is or what caused it yet speak about it as if it were our fault--a "wound" and such.

You all aren't very clear on the concepts of metaphor or simile are you?

Actually BtC not only are we clear on similes and metaphors, we eat them for breakfast with organically grown raisins.

We're also very clear about the nature of media reportage. No matter the tenuous connection, every story is slanted to imply that we (American) humans are destroying mother earth by our reckless behavior using up all her resources to advance our hedonistic life styles which are causing the seas to rise, the mountains to fall and on and on.

I have to stop now, I feel dizzy and have to take a prescription drug which George W. Bush conspiring with evil drug corporations made available to us old geezers at a ridiculously low price passing the real costs on to younger workers who won't get a cent of the social security they paid into and to make matters worse, these drugs aren't made available to those dying of AIDS in primitive villages in equatorial Africa or those dying of malaria because they have been also been deprived of DDT and ... and ...

kerplunk.

of science, not reporting.

Who "wounded" it? Mars in a playground fight?

BtC:

Bingo! Scientific paradigms are mere metaphors.

Yes, Rove's earthcrust wounding machine is being used to tear a gash earth's crust. Notice that he hasn't been seen or heard from lately?