China’s 10,000-meter deep dive into scientific exploration

In a first, China will drill a 6.2 mile (10,000-meter) superdeep borehole into the Earth's crust in its quench for scientific exploration. The drilling began Tuesday in China's large oil-bearing basin – the Tarim Basin of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. China has been exploring the deep Earth for many years. Only last week, it was reported that the world's second-largest economy completed building a 12,000-tonne offshore drilling rig to mine the geological reserves of natural gas. Now with the almost 10-kilometer superdeep hole, the country aims to unearth rich minerals and energy resources and study the deep uncharted…