Why did China drill a borehole more than thirty thousand feet deep?

According to the English-language Chinese newspaper Xinhua, on March 4, 2024, China experienced a breakthrough in its deep-Earth exploration: the drilling of an incredibly deep borehole reached the 10,000 meters (32808 feet) mark.

The drill being used is called the Shenditake 1, and according to Xinhua, it is expected to drill even deeper. The goal is to reach 11,100 meters below the Earth's surface. This is the first borehole experiment in China ever designed to go deeper than 10,000 meters.

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The drilling is taking place in the Tarim Basin in the oil-rich Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The question many have is why does China want to drill this ridiculously deep borehole?

China has been one of the countries most interested in exploring the Earth's crust for decades, and it seems that they are now ready to get as close to the Earth's crust as possible to step up this research.

In fact, the Asian giant has been exploring the Earth's interior for years, but with this hole, they aim to go where no one has gone before.

The aim is, a priori, to discover minerals or energy resources that can be used to improve the country's economy, China Daily reports.

Photo: Twitter - China Xinhua News @XHNews

Incidentally, as Chinese President Xi Jinping confirmed in 2021, this mega-project will serve to assess and - perhaps - prevent future natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions or earthquakes.

To this end, the plan was made to drill the deepest borehole in China's history. According to Bloomberg, it will be a narrow hole that will cross 10 continental layers.

The goal is to reach the Cretaceous system in the earth's crust, where they expect to find rocks more than 145 million years old, according to state-run Xinhua news agency.

To carry out this project, China will use a 2,000-ton oil rig with high-tech drill bits and drill pipe, Interesting Engineering reports.

Photo: Twitter - China Xinhua News @XHNews

The area chosen for this nearly infinite well has an additional problem, which is a very dry climate. It lies in the Tarim River basin and adjacent to the Taklamakan Desert, the largest desert in China, Xinhua reports.

Photo: Twitter - China Xinhua News @XHNews

This is an area with a very difficult terrestrial environment coupled with unfavorable subsurface conditions makes the drilling even more complicated.

Photo: Twitter - China Xinhua News @XHNews

Currently, the team in charge of this complicated project is prepared for months to complete this challenging task.

Photo: Twitter - China Xinhua News @XHNews

The risk, danger and complexity involved in such a mission justify taking every possible precaution.

"The difficulty of the project is comparable to driving a large truck on two thin steel cables," Sun Jinsheng, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told the Economic Times.

Despite the 10,000 meter deep Chinese hole, the world's deepest borehole is still Kola Superdeep, the Russian well drilled by the Soviet Union between 1970 and 1992.

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Photo: Wikipedia - By Шелковников Евгений Анатольевич - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=94393449

Also called SG-3, it is located on the Kola Peninsula in the Pechengsky area. It reached a depth of 12,262 meters.