All articles tagged with #borehole
Researchers from BAS and KOPRI partially lowered instruments under Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier to study warm, subglacial waters; the mooring got stuck as the borehole refroze and time/weather forced an abandonment, but the team still obtained valuable measurements to inform future efforts.
British and South Korean scientists’ ambitious drill under Thwaites Glacier collapsed at the final step when the borehole refroze and entombed the instruments, forcing an abrupt end to a mission intended to install long‑term tidal‑water sensors. Earlier attempts did yield some preliminary measurements from beneath the glacier, revealing warm, turbulent waters that fuel its melt, but time and bad conditions prevented deployment of the moored instruments and completion of the study.
China is drilling a deep borehole, Shenditake 1, in the Taklamakan Desert, aiming to reach 36,418 feet into the Earth's crust to study its internal structure and evolution. The project, led by China National Petroleum Corporation, has already reached over 32,808 feet in just 10 months, despite challenging conditions like high temperatures and pressure. This effort is part of a broader geoscience research initiative, contrasting with Russia's Kola Superdeep Borehole, which took 19 years to reach a greater depth.
China has started drilling a 10,000-metre borehole in the Tarim Basin, Xinjiang province, which is the country's deepest-ever borehole. The project aims to explore areas deep beneath the Earth's surface, discover valuable minerals and energy resources, and assess the risks of environmental calamities. The drilling intends to reach the Cretaceous system, which has rocks reaching back 145 million years. The project faces challenges due to the harsh ground environment and complicated underground conditions in the Tarim Basin. The deepest man-made hole on Earth is the Russian Kola Superdeep Borehole, which was completed in 1989 at a depth of 12,262 metres.