Chinese are drilling a 10-kilometer deep hole into Earth's crust

(Patria) - Chinese scientists have begun drilling a 10,000-meter deep hole into the Earth's crust.

The excavation of China's deepest well began yesterday in the oil-rich Xinjiang region, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The narrow shaft into the ground will penetrate more than 10 continental layers or rock layers and reach the Cretaceous system, which contains rocks about 145 million years old.

- This was not an easy project. Constructing something like this could be compared to a large truck driving on two thin steel cables - said Sun Jinsheng of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Bloomberg reported. 

In 2021, President Xi Jinping, addressing leading national scientists, called for greater progress in exploring the interior of our planet to identify mineral and energy resources and improve the assessment of risks from environmental disasters, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. 

The deepest hole dug by humans into the Earth remains the Russian Kola Superdeep Borehole, which reached a depth of 12,262 meters in 1989, after 20 years of drilling.