Sébastien Le Belzic, edited by Alexandre Dalifard / Photo credit: LI XIANG / XINHUA / XINHUA VIA AFP 06:13, 02 June 2023

In China, in an effort to study the heart of the Earth's crust, scientists this week began one of the deepest boreholes in the world, more than 10 kilometers deep. The work will last a little less than a year and a half and reach rocks that are 145 million years old.

Remember Jules Vernes' novel, "Journey to the Center of the Earth"? In this adventure novel published in 1864, a professor, his nephew and a guide undertake a daring journey by digging a hole to reach the center of our planet. Well, science fiction is about to become reality in China, where scientists this week began one of the world's deepest drillings, more than 10 kilometers deep, to study the heart of the Earth's crust.

An 82-metre-high drilling rig

The rig that began this week to break through the Taklamakan Desert in northwest China is a veritable steel monster. It is 82 meters high. The work will last a little less than a year and a half and reach rocks that are 145 million years old. "This operation at a depth of 10,000 meters will open up new areas of research by giving valuable and rare information on the evolution of the earth. This will help us better understand the evolution of this region and even of China as a whole," said Hao Fang, one of the scientists in charge of the project.

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It is a question of identifying mineral resources and especially finding oil but also of assessing the risks of natural disasters such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Until then the deepest hole dug by man was the Russian Kola drilling which reached a depth of 12,262 meters in 1989 after 20 years of drilling.