orig. title "China Is Drilling a 10,000-Meter-Deep Hole Into Earth’s Crust", 61chrs well within 80chrs limit, Y shorten as "10k-Meter" not "10km", RSVP.
I'm far from being even slightly knowledgeable in this topic, but would it be possible to build this in very deep waters? Like a massive column containing a tunnel? Seems cheaper than digging a 1km hole.
The longest wells are already close to 10 miles, but it is mostly horizontal. My understanding is going deep you eventually hit hot rock which has a clay like texture and isn’t amenable to drilling.
Core drilling is quite different from well drilling which would be used in this case.
I do not understand this article. According to wikipedia, the deepwater horizon drilled to 10,683 m in 1,259 m of water. Acccording to the nature article, the deepest ever holes drilled were successively the 2,900 and 3,200 m deep holes drilled by the Chikyu. 2,900 seems a lot less than 10,683. What is going on here?
A couple reasons, I'd bet - first, a hole wide enough to fit the probe is pretty unusual, and would be an expensive research project all on its own. Second, the probe near the surface will emit the largest signal, so you get some really good SNR data to calibrate your algorithms against. If you don't understand the signals you're receiving when it's shallow, you won't understand them any better when it's deep - a regime where we have more theories than data. Or maybe something else.
They're probably looking at a width of 10cm tops from their description.
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