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Earth China

China Begins Drilling a 10-Kilometer-Deep Hole In Earth's Crust 118

Posted by BeauHD from the journey-to-the-center-of-the-Earth dept.
China has begun digging a 10-kilometer-deep hole in the Earth's crust in the Tarim Basin, Xinjiang province, as part of its exploration of the planet's interior. From a report: The team will dig deep into the Earth, penetrating more than 10 continental strata, which can be used to reconstruct the history of the Earth's continents, including the evolution of landscapes, climate change, and the distribution of life. Continental strata are layers of rock, which are an important resource for understanding the history of the Earth. They can be used to identify and date past events, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and climate change. They can also be used to identify and study ancient life forms.

"Drilling a borehole over 10,000 meters deep is a bold attempt to explore the unknown territory of the Earth and expand the boundaries of human understanding," Wang Chunsheng, a technical expert who joined the operation, told China's Xinhua news agency. The borehole will penetrate a depth of 11,100 meters and is located in the hinterland of the Taklimakan Desert, the largest desert in China, which in itself is a challenging environment to work in. While the digging has begun, China has not yet given a full explanation or the reason behind the dig.

The deepest man-made hole on Earth is the Kola Superdeep Borehole in the Kola Peninsula of Russia, which was drilled between 1970 and 1992. The hole touched a depth of 12,262 meters and was aimed at studying the Earth's crust and mantle. However, the team experience several challenges during the project including high temperatures of up to 180 degrees Celsius at the bottoms of the hole, the constant breaking and changing of the drill bit and the strength of the rocks at the depth.
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China Begins Drilling a 10-Kilometer-Deep Hole In Earth's Crust More

China Begins Drilling a 10-Kilometer-Deep Hole In Earth's Crust

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    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 )

      It fits in with trying to send a person to the moon 50-60 years after it's already been done.

      The great march continues! :)

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        keep yourself occupied finding out what a women is and let others do science.

    • learning.
      you got to start somewhere.
      i guess drilling a hole on the moon is to hard.
      my mind wondered for a moment.
      it will not happen again

  • Before somebody else says it (Score:5, Funny)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Thursday June 01, 2023 @06:05AM (#63566753)

    Digging a hole FROM China? Who knew that was a thing?

  • Who's Doing the Drilling? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by necro81 ( 917438 ) on Thursday June 01, 2023 @07:04AM (#63566825) Journal

    China has begun digging a 10-kilometer-deep hole in the Earth's crust in the Tarim Basin, Xinjiang province

    Xinjiang Province, eh? Are they planning to used forced Uyghur labor [google.com] from their re-education camps?

    • A hole this deep is highly skilled labor, they're not gonna throw Uyghurs into the hole with picks and shovels. The last thing you want on an enormously expensive project is forced laborers.

    • Most likely. It's also highly likely that they will not achieve anything like the reported depth, but will lie about it.

      The Kola borehole site, sadly, is in ruins and abandoned.

  • What if they spring a leak? (Score:3)

    by tinkerton ( 199273 ) on Thursday June 01, 2023 @07:10AM (#63566833)

    The planet could deflate and collapse !.

  • And there it is. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Thursday June 01, 2023 @07:34AM (#63566879)

    While the digging has begun, China has not yet given a full explanation or the reason behind the dig.

    Something tells me that this isn't for the benefit of simply understanding the history of Earth.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      We need more information, like the diameter. The previous ones have all been fairly small, so there's not a lot that can be done with them beyond taking samples and measuring the temperature. The one in Russia was something like 20cm IIRC.

      • The Kola borehole was drilled with standard sizes of drill pipe and casings. I think they TD'd in 6 inch hole, barefoot.

        The oil industry started in Russia (well, Azerbaijan) in about 1850, a couple of decades before Spindletop and had already discovered that you need a certain amount of clearance around a string of casing to be able to run it into hole, and to pump cement slurry around it ... from which a series of "standard sizes" for drill bits and casing tubulars were developed.

        I used what information

    • Is there anything to gain from a 10 km borehole aside from an understanding of the history of Earth? I mean, there's no way they're looking for oil or some other natural resource at those depths - even if there was anything worthwhile that far down, drilling 10 km to get to it places it well outside the realm of profitability. That'd also be a ridiculous amount of effort to put e.g. a seismometer at that depth, but maybe you're right and the CCP knows something we don't?

      • Is there anything to gain from a 10 km borehole

        For one, we don't know that they are actually drilling a 10 km borehole, only that they have claimed they are doing so. There are a number of reasons to lie but assuming it's the truth, it could be a test site for a geothermal energy well. They could also be doing something like drilling to do nuclear detonation tests. Maybe they want to extract stuff from the resulting detonation because they don't care about irradiating people. I mean, there is a whole books of unethical ideas that you can do when you do

        • it could be a test site for a geothermal energy well

          That is possible, but unlikely. They are digging down 10 km, they could easily stop at around 3-4 km to run a Geothermal plant. The deepest right now is around 4 km. Geothermal is a cool idea, but pretty problematic in practice. I think this must be for some other reason. Maybe it's a crazy ultra-low frequency transceiver antenna?

          • That is possible, but unlikely. They are digging down 10 km,

            No, they claim they are digging down 10 km. What in China's history makes you think this piece of information is reliable?

            • More of a thought exercise. It really doesn't matter to me if they did it or they lied about doing it. In my personal life, it matters as much as if the Apollo moon landings were faked or not. That is to say, none. I was mainly just saying that it's not likely to be a Geothermal plant if that is even only their stated goal (10km).

          • Maybe it's a crazy ultra-low frequency transceiver antenna?

            When the US Navy were applying for planning permission for "site evaluation" works for such in Scotland (Eastern Cairngorms), they wanted to build it on the flat above a uniform, high resistivity granite batholith. Not drilled into the ground. Whatever you emitted (HF, LF, ULF) from the antenna would be absorbed by the ground.

            The US Navy's justification was they wanted to build something that they could use to communicate with their nuclear subs w

        • a 10 km borehole, only that they have claimed they are doing so.

          It's a very achievable target. 10 km vertically isn't a very big deal - a lot easier than 10km sub-horizontally, and that was passed some time about 2012.

          it could be a test site for a geothermal energy well.

          Could be. They'll know their local surface geothermal gradient from the thousands of oil wells drilled in the Tarim Basin over the decades, and heat flow is conserved through volume. So the heat flux from (say) 1000m to 2000m depth is the

      • There are several significant oilfields in the Tarim basin - have been since the 1960s or so. That'll be their information target.

        drilling 10 km to get to it places it well outside the realm of profitability

        I doubt it. The longest hole in the world is somewhere up beyond the 14km mark (since before I left the industry ; I don't keep up), to a depth of about 4km. Going beyond 10km measured depth is so routine it wasn't making the news when I left the industry, and that was over 6 years ago. (Note : measured

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Torodung ( 31985 )

      Something tells me that China would not give a full explanation of anything they do. This is common in authoritarian states. Stonewall inquiries as a matter of course.

    • Huh? Are you thinking they're turning the Earth into Starkiller base or some shit?
      It's a borehole. A relatively microscopic puncture on the surface of the earth, at a depth far too deep to be commercially useful, unless you're looking to sell really fucking hot rocks.

      Now if the bore was really big, and with extra boring going on around it, you could say "oh- geothermal energy", and a subsequent "fantastic!"
      Are you scared they're going to drill to the US and drop a nuke down (up?) the hole?

      • at a depth far too deep to be commercially useful

        How do you get to be good at drilling deep? Surprisingly, by drilling deep. If this well discovers a significant gas resource at (say) 10km, then the next thing to do (which the plans will already have been done for) would be to repeat the well at the opposite end of (whatever structure they've seen on seismic). Possibly two or three wells, spread out from the "discovery" well. These are called (in different countries) "delineation" or "appraisal" wells. By t

    • If I had to guess I would say it's trying to finding something for their engineers to do besides fomenting a political coup. China trained up literally millions of engineers but they really don't have all that much to do with them. When you have a large number of highly educated people without jobs that can create all sorts of problems especially foreign authoritarian government. So you come up with make work projects for them

      • China trained up literally millions of engineers but they really don't have all that much to do with them.
        So you come up with make work projects for them

        And just how many do you think it will take to work on this 1 hole?

    • Since when does a sovereign nation need to say why they are digging a hole? I get that China is an authoritarian regime and has done some terrible things.... that doesn't immediately mean that digging a hole is for evil gains?

      Check your prejudice.

      • I get that China is an authoritarian regime and has done some terrible things....

        Done some terrible "things"? Understatement of the century, friend. The CCP is on par with the Nazis.

        Check your prejudice.

        It's prejudice to judge them based on what they are. However, I am judging them based on what they have done.

        Being an apologist for a truly evil regime is deplorable.

        • Sigh. I didn't forgive them for their past sins, as apologists do, I merely stated that in this particular instance, it was unlikely that they were doing something "evil"

          I assume you are the type that says Nazis are terrible and nothing good came from their rule? Of course, while Nazis are the epitome of evil, it doesn't change the fact that they brought economic revival to Germany.

          You can separate doing good and doing evil. Does that mean you should trust an evil regime? Obviously not. Does it mean you sho

    • Well, the Tarim Basin does have several significant oilfields and different plays, and IIRC one of the most productive (by volume) source rocks in the world, so I'd guess that they're going to pick up some significantly useful geological information on the way.

      I did the same - specifically high precision gas analysis - on an "ultra-deep" borehole in Abu Dhabi back in ... 1992 (or -93, I'd have to check my diary), drilling through a stack of productive horizons (gas, several oil-prone reservoirs, then sever

  • I can't believe no one else has thought of this! Isn't it obvious that digging a hole this deep could be viewed as an act of war by the reptilians? Or maybe the Chinese government has a secret pact with them and the tunnel will be for reptilian troops to come above ground and support the Chinese army in global conquest. If it comes to that, we will only be able to prevail if we turn over control of our military to an AI. Better an AI overlord than a lizard.
  • Are they trying to bore a hole into the Dark One's prison? That new power source is a trick, don't do it!

  • I would think this was a perfect solution for clean energy. The heat in those depths would definetly create steam and pressure. I wonder what the cost benefit ration would be?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tx ( 96709 )

      For geothermal energy, you want to find places where there is hot stuff closer to the surface, you do not want to be pumping fluid down an 11km hole to heat it up. But geothermal in all but the most suitable locations tends to be anything but cheap. The trouble is the higher the temperature the better, as far as efficiency is concerned, however the higher the temperature, the more you get chemical reactions corroding pipes etc, so you end up with high maintenance costs, in addition to the high cost of drill

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Bumbul ( 7920730 )
      No need for the hole to be that deep - and no need to create steam and pressure. For geothermal energy a few hundred meters is enough and then you just circulate a liquid and take heat out of it with a heat pump. Quite common source of heating energy for even single family homes in the Nordic countries.

  • It's not only that the rocks are hard, there's more gravitational pressure, which is a big issue when it comes to drilling deeper.

  • They want to establish a connection to the mole people, build some infrastructure for them based on long term debt, and establish an imbalanced trade relationship with them, providing them with solutions for previously unmet needs, such as plastic moleman poop.

  • But now it looks like they're doing it for me!
  • My biggest disappointment with the Russian bore hole is that they just capped it when they were done instead of putting a generator on it for an endless energy supply. Presumably a sterling cycle engine could drive a generator very well, although a source of cool water to achieve an even greater temperature differential would help. So... are the Chinese going to put a generator on this when they finish?
    • No way in hell you reach net positive power that way.
      • Not even if you drop a heat pipe down the hole?
        • I'm pretty sure you need a pump.
          I think the gravitational and thermal potential for convection precisely balance out, meaning you're going to need to pump your working fluid.
          Pretty sure a Sterling cycle engine must be less efficient than that pump, meaning I'm pretty sure you could create a cool science experiment that consumed power, and generated some of it back... but always at a loss.

          I'm not power station engineer, but I don't see any ways around that.
          Geothermal stations generally work by having a
    • The Kola Superdeep Borehole was deliberately drilled at an are of low geothermal gradient, precisely because they wanted to avoid - as much as possible - the problems of high borehole temperatures. Ditto the German KTB (Kontinental Tiefbohrung), with a couple of decades of better high-temperature mud chemistry.

      I wonder what mud chemistry the Iceanders are using?

      I don't know what the geothermal gradient is at this location ; it's close to, possibly within the area of the various Tarim Basin oilfields, whic

  • Project Mohole (Score:5, Informative)

    by 602 ( 652745 ) on Thursday June 01, 2023 @11:01AM (#63567405)
    Project Mohole, by the American Miscellaneous Society, tried to drill to the mantle in 1961. They reckoned that Earth's crust is much thinner in ocean basins than on continents, so they attempted with an untethered platform in deep water. No one had tried drilling in deep water before. They managed to just drill 183 meters into the sea floor but were inventing a whole field of engineering. Their funding, from NSF, was cut by Congress. The story is told in a really good book called "A Hole in the Bottom of the Sea" by Willard Bascom (whose "Waves and Beaches" is also good). Wikipedia has a good article on Project Mohole.

  • For those of us who don't do metric, how many football fields is that?

    • Depends on what you count as part of the field. If it's only the grass, a field is maybe 10 cm deep, so 100,000 football fields.

  • Despite understanding physics I find the difference between surface movement and drilling down quite unintuitive.

    After all, 10km is a small distance on the surface which can be travelled easily on a daily basis, while drilling, diving, or even climbing the same distance is beyond comparison.

    Gravity, while a very weak force as forces go, is a bitch.

  • They are going to crack open the Earth, and all the molten core will spill out! LOL

  • ...then they can start moving horizontally through the Earth's crust, undetected by any surface sensors, and then under the sensitive parts of other nations.

    It's been done before... /s

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • The place is extremely dry. I wonder if they are looking for underground water.
  • good luck china. It is nice to see that they are doing real, as well as basic, research.
  • There are countless potholes at least that deep in and near Cleveland, Ohio.

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