Beijing: China, as the second-largest economy in the world, pushes the boundaries of what is possible above and below the surface of the Earth. Chinese scientists have started digging a 10,000 metre (32,808 foot) hole into the earth's crust.
Drilling for what is set to be China’s deepest ever borehole began in the country’s oil-rich Xinjiang region, according to the official Xinhua news agency. According to the study, the slender shaft will pierce over ten continental strata, or layers of rock, before reaching the cretaceous system in the Earth's crust, which contains rock that is about 145 million years old.
“The construction difficulty of the drilling project can be compared to a big truck driving on two thin steel cables,” Sun Jinsheng, a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said. President Xi Jinping has called for greater progress in deep earth exploration. Such work can identify mineral and energy resources and help assess the risks of environmental disasters, such as earthquakes and volcano eruptions.
The Russian Kola Superdeep Borehole, which took 20 years to drill to a depth of 12,262 metres in 1989, remains the deepest artificial hole on Earth.