China is drilling a well 10,000 meters deep. He has good reason to do so.

The interior of the Earth’s crust has long been a mystery that has attracted the attention of geologists and scientists. China has led the way in this research in recent years. Last week it was announced that the Asian country had completed construction Offshore drilling rig 12 thousand tons to exploit the geological reserves of natural gas.

Now he embarked on an even more difficult task: Digging a hole 10,000 meters deep in the Earth’s crust.

The project. This borehole will become the deepest well ever drilled in China and will be located in the oil-rich Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. It will be very narrow, but it will penetrate more than 10 continental layers and reach the Cretaceous system in the earth’s crust that contains rocks more than 145 million years old, According to what was reported by the New China News Agency (Xinhua)..

Currently, the deepest man-made hole on Earth remains the Russian Kola Superdeep well, which was started by the Soviet Union in 1970 and reached a depth of 12,262 meters after 20 years of drilling.

How will that happen? Thanks to the very heavy equipment, Not less than 2000 tonss, which includes high-tech drill bits and tubes. And it is that drilling through these layers of rock can be very complicated, According to some experts. The reason is the location chosen: The well is being drilled in the Tarim Basin, a vast depression of land drained by the Tarim River where the climate is extremely dry. In fact, it is located in the middle of the pelvis Taklamakan Desert (the largest in China), where excavations are taking place.

“The difficulty of the project can be compared to driving a large truck on two thin steel cables,” Sun Jinsheng explainedScientist at the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

the goal. The process, which has already started, is a file a milestone in the exploration of Earth It provides a unique opportunity to study the depths below the surface. It is worth noting that China He had already been exploring the Earth’s interior for several years. Now, with this super-deep hole, he seeks to discover mineral resources and energy that he can use to help his economy thrive.

And not only that. As announced by President Xi Jinping in 2021, the nation now also aims to study the unexplored composition of the Earth to assess the risks of environmental disasterssuch as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The largest natural well in the world. As we have in the other Xataka article, the largest and deepest natural well in the world is the Xiaozhai Tiankeng well, under which an underground forest lives. It is also called the “Heavenly Well” and is located in Fengjie, a county of Chongqing Municipality in China, has a depth of 662 meters, a length of 626, and a width of 537 meters. In reality, it is a drain, cesspool or depression in the ground caused, among other factors, by the action of water.

As geologists explain, it was formed on top of a cave and hosts an underground river It measures a total of 8.5 kilometers It ends in a stunning waterfall. Its massive size makes Xiaozhai Tiankeng a pit for its kind, tiankeng, The largest and deepest in the world.

And what about Spain? The largest is in Cantabria. It’s so deep that it takes 12 seconds for the stone to reach the bottom, but it’s still nowhere near the aforementioned Russian well. However, this perforation called Gran Pozo MDTE, located in the Cantabrian municipality of Ruesga, can also boast of being the largest vertical well in Spain.

He was Discover In 2016 by speleologists from Club Cántabro de Exploraciones Subterráneas and Espeleo Club Ábrigu it was estimated to be 436 meters deep, slightly more than the Eiffel Tower, which is 324 meters high.

Image: National Science Foundation/B. Goodbjartsson

In Xataka | This well in China is so deep that it cuts through the layers of the Cretaceous period.