How Far Below in the Earth's Core is the Technodrome during season 3 of the 1987 show
 

I have so many memories from season 3, both good and bad episodes. The season was very long, and of course, ended with the fantastic Big Trilogy. Never liked the Technodrome setting as much as the others, but always wondered, how far below in the Earth's Core would the Technodrome actually be, hanging there at the edge of the lava.

I always thought they were pretty close to the center of the Earth, though they might've only been a few hundred miles below the crust.

Krang mentioned in "Turtles on Trial" and Shredder mentioned (through a dream sequence) in "Take Me To Your Leader" that they were 1000 miles beneath the Earth's surface. That makes me wonder how fast those transport modules really were. :O

The Technodrome did move a couple of times throughout the season before the Big Trilogy so I imagine the distance between the Technodrome and the surface decreased a little bit.

It was mentioned a couple times that the Technodrome was at the Earth's core 10 miles below the earth's surface. That's impossible. I know the mantle is a lot more than 10 miles long.

I don't know how much man knows about the Earth's interior (and it would of course be even less back in 1989). Actually, we seem to know more about the surfaces on other planets.

Yes, the Technodrome moves during season 3. First, it falls down in "Return of the Technodrome", hitting lava. Probably they use some drills and their last moving power to get up from the lava, and back to the edge. Then it moves in the "5th Turtle" (in a cave in the Earth's underground, without lava), must have fallen back again.

The real crisis seem to start in "Bye Bye Fly", with no portal working, and candles replacing electric lights,.

The Technodrome also moved in Return Of The Fly, before running out of fuel.

There was one ep of season 3 that showed the camera panning down below the surface. First they showed the sewers, then a subway train, then all the way down the Technodrome.

Sounds more like season 1 ("A Thing About Rats").

Yup!! That also happened (minus the subway) in "Beneath These Streets".

Yup, this too!! Aside from the "Big Break-in", this was the closest they got to the surface. All of a sudden it took a mere Techno-rover to just drive up to the sewers in "The Missing Map" and even Baxter made it there with no problem in "Bye Bye Fly".

This is just a guess, I know the cartoon mentioned somewhere "100 miles" deep so it's probably in the Earth's mantle.

The OT story could have implied in the "center of the earth" but if we were to add some realism into it...then that would be impossible because the Earth's outer core is made of LIQUID iron and nickel and would have melted the Technodrome immediately, but then again it's "Dimension X" technology. LOL :lol:
Wikipedia on Earth's outer core: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_core

(It couldn't be the Earth's inner core either, because it's just a solid ball alloy of iron-nickel, and it's solid despite its high temperatures because of such EXTREME pressure that forces the liquid iron-nickel to be in a solid state.) Wikipedia on Earth's inner core: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_core

The Earth's mantle, is the best guess because it's 1800 miles thick and... is primarily solid with viscous magma (basically lava but within the earth) which the OT scenes depicted.
Wikipedia on Earth's mantle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_%28geology%29

But of course, the scenes were the characters got out of the Technodrome without any suits/protection is impossible because their bodies would "cook up".

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Just discovered that Wikipedia has a small paragraph about the OT episode "Turtles At The Earth's Core" under the Wikipedia entry "Travel To the Earth's Center" under the section "Science Fiction". I thought it was interesting for that episode to be noted among with the much more famous examples, such as of Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center Of the Earth". :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_...rth%27s_center

100 miles seems about right because there is a section of the Earth's mantle between about 60 to 140 mi (100 to 250 km) that is referred to as the asthenosphere, which is a zone that is believed to be made of a thick slush consisting of partially melted rocks and minerals, which is where the Technodrome was located throughout most of Season 3. It can't be the lower mantle (solid rock), outer core (dense liquid), or liquid core (likely solid).