If that’s not like a journey to the center of the Earth to explore a possible underworld, what is? The Chinese have once again taken the world by surprise and everyone is guessing what Beijing is up to now.
Chinese scientists have begun a groundbreaking attempt to drill holes into the Earth’s crust, drilling 10,000 meters (32,808 feet) below the Earth’s surface, state media Xinhua reported.
This ambitious project, launched by the world’s second-largest economy, seeks to explore new frontiers both above and below Earth.
Drilling has begun in China’s oil-rich Xinjiang region, state news agency Xinhua reported. Notably, China launched its inaugural civilian astronaut into space from the Gobi Desert on the same morning.
According to the report, the narrow shaft being drilled will pass through 10 continental strata, or layers of rock, eventually reaching the Cretaceous system within the Earth’s crust.
The system consists of rock formations about 145 million years old.
Sun Jinsheng, a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, likens the construction challenges of this drilling project to a large truck carefully moving on two thin steel cables.
The main objectives of the initiative, led by China National Petroleum Corporation, are to collect data on the Earth’s internal structure and to test advanced deep underground drilling technologies.
The project is expected to take 457 days to complete.
President Xi Jinping emphasized the importance of advancing deep Earth exploration in an address to the country’s leading scientists in 2021.
This type of research has the potential to identify valuable mineral and energy resources while helping to mitigate environmental hazards such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Xinjiang’s Tarim Basin contains China’s largest and deepest oil reserves, and Sinopec has developed ultra-deep wells elsewhere in the region, according to News Scientist.
The scientific news website added that this includes the Shanbei oil and gas field, where the company says it has drilled 49 wells more than 8,000 meters deep.
The drilling project could provide researchers with a deeper insight into the specific geology of the Taram Basin.
The basin collects water drained from three mountain ranges and is believed to have formed during the closure of the Palaeo-Esian Ocean 200 million years ago.
“It looks like an industrial oil drilling project as opposed to a scientific drilling project,” NewScientists said, citing Edward Sobel of the University of Potsdam in Germany. “Exploratory wells usually try very hard not to find oil and gas,” he added.
It is worth noting that the current record for the deepest man-made borehole on Earth is the Russian Kola Super Deep Borehole, which reached a depth of 12,262 meters (40,230 ft) in 1989 after 20 years of drilling.