It is a scientific adventure, but also a quest for mineral and energy resources.
Chinese scientists have challenged to dig a hole 10,000 meters deep in the earth’s crust. The world’s second-largest economy seeks to explore new territories beneath the Earth’s surface.
Drilling for China’s deepest hole kicked off on Tuesday in the oil-rich Xinjiang region in the northwest of the country. The narrow shaft will cut through more than 10 layers of continental rock to reach Cretaceous rocks, some 145 million years old.
A highly complex drilling challenge
“The difficulty of this drilling project is comparable to that of a truck driving over 2 thin steel cables,” said scientist Sun Jinsheng. And the drill only scratches the earth’s crust. Indeed, it measures between 30 and 60 kilometers thick before passing to the Earth’s mantle.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has already called, during a speech in 2021, to further explore the depths of the Earth. Such work can help unearth mineral and energy resources, as well as assess the risk of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Drilling records in Russia
The deepest man-made hole is on the Kola Peninsula, near the Finnish border in Russia. It reached a depth of 12,262 meters in 1989. The record for the longest drill hole was also set in Russia during the Sakhalin I project in 2008. In this oil and gas extraction project, a hole 12,345 meters deep was drilled, mainly horizontally.