Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Earlier this year, China began digging a hole 10,000 meters or 10 kilometers deep into the Earth. This excavation is the deepest hole ever dug by humans.

The project is excavating 10 rock layers and hopes to find rocks from the Cretaceous Age, layers known as the Cretaceous System, which are 145 million years old.

The excavation can be used to identify mineral resources, as well as help assess environmental risks such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, as quoted from IFL Science, Monday (16/10/2023).

However, Quanyou Liu from Peking University in China, who is familiar with the project, told New Scientist that the drilling could reach further back in time, from the Cambrian period 541 to 485 million years ago.

“Here in the Tarim Basin, there may be oil,” Liu said.

According to him, another aim of the drilling is to find out whether there is still oil and gas at great depths.

This makes sense, considering that the project is led by China’s National Petroleum Corp.

According to the company, the hole will test new drilling technology, as well as help study the Earth’s internal structure.

The hole, although very deep, is not the deepest man-made hole on Earth. The title of deepest hole goes to the Kola Superdeep Borehole, on the Kola Peninsula in northwestern Russia.

The project, which lasted from May 24 1970 until after the collapse of the Soviet Union, saw the deepest branch of the hole reach 11,034 meters below sea level.

The team discovered that rocks deep beneath the Earth were much wetter than they expected.

Before drill holes were discovered, scientists thought water would not penetrate rock that deep. They also hope to find a basalt layer beneath the continent’s granite, as this is the layer found in oceanic crust.

Instead, the team discovered beneath the frozen granite was metamorphic granite. Because continental crust is made entirely of granite, this is evidence of plate tectonics. A new theory began to be accepted when they started digging boreholes.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(dem)