December 21, 2025 | 09:55 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - China is drilling a well in the expanse of the Taklamakan Desert to a depth of 10,000 meters for research on the Earth's crust. The project, named Shendi Take 1, is being carried out to serve as a laboratory for seismological research, geological evolution, and the ancient climate.
Researchers are deploying equipment weighing more than 2,000 tons to penetrate the hard rock layers. The high-tech drill bits are designed to slice through at least ten layers of rock at the desert's base. The main target is to reach the chalk system, rock layers formed when dinosaurs still roamed the earth.
Scientists hope that this hole will bring up samples of ancient rocks that hold the secrets of the Earth's past conditions. In this way, physical data from this extreme depth will provide a valid comparison for seismic data, which has so far only been in the form of wave reflection images.
Sun Jinsheng, an academician from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, stated that the research in this project focuses on deep drilling technology for energy production and earth sciences. However, there are risks in its realization, "The construction difficulty of this drilling project can be compared to a large truck driving on two thin steel cables," Jinsheng said as quoted by Earth.com on December 18, 2025.
For the global scientific community, the data generated from this hole will open up new insights into the Earth's internal structure. Sediments lifted from a depth of 10 kilometers will tell the story of ancient seas and continental shifts that formed the modern world. Ultimately, Shendi Take 1 is humanity's endeavor to decipher the secrets of the Earth that have been buried for hundreds of millions of years.
Scientists will utilize the obtained data on the Earth's crust structure to assess the potential for environmental disasters, such as earthquakes and volcanic activities, with higher accuracy. This effort aligns with the Chinese government's directive to push for greater advancements in the exploration of the Earth's interior.
Read: UNEP Warns Earth Could Speed Past 1.5C Threshold by 2035 as COP30 Approaches
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