China has started drilling a 6.2 mile (10,000-meter) superdeep borehole into the Earth’s crust. The drilling in May, 2023 in China’s large oil-bearing basin – the Tarim Basin of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
China has been exploring the deep Earth for many years. Also in May, 2023, China completed building a 12,000-tonne offshore drilling rig to mine the geological reserves of natural gas.
In the deep hole drilling process, the 2,000-tonne heavy equipment, which includes drill bits and drill pipes, will go deep into the Earth, penetrating over 10 continental strata or layers of rock formation. The drilling will also go beyond the Cretaceous system, a series of layered rocks below the oldest tertiary deposits and above the Jurassic system, which ended about 145.5 million years ago.
The deepest artificial hole on Earth is the Russian Kola Superdeep Borehole, which took 20 years to reach a depth of 12,262 meters (40,230 feet) in 1989. China plans to dig its new hold in less than two years.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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Not sure why this is getting so much attention. In 1974 the Lone Star Bertha Rogers 1 in the Anadarko basin of Oklahoma was drilled and completed at 9,528 meters (31,444 ft). Gas wells to 25,000 ft plus were commonly drilled in the Anadarko, Pecos, and, in China, the Tarim, where this deep hole is being drilled.
I’ve seen this one. Loved it as a kid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Beneath_the_Earth
Very long rocket tube. Staging all below ground;)
Ok. Now my grudging respect for Chinese ‘original’ tech undertakings or fascinating master plans has been lifted to ‘hat tip’. But will anyone go down? Unknown dinosaurs, exotic minerals/ metals, extremophiles… to be found?
(insert joke about digging a hole to china)
I can do you one better. A probe to the core:
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003Natur.423..239S/abstract
Let’s crowdfund.
Meh.
The mantle is 100x that away and several oil rigs have gotten to almost 20km.