Chapter 161: Temporary Decision
At a depth of 20,000 meters, maintaining a drilling speed of 100 meters per day was unimaginable for the human world decades ago.
The original Kola Superdeep Borehole, after breaking through 12,000 meters depth, had a drilling speed of only about 0.1 meters per day, showing how astonishing this speed is now.
But even so, it is still too slow for the current human world.
In the Apocalypse Project Command meeting room, numerous experts and consultant group members faced this reality with solemn expressions.
After a slightly prolonged contemplation, Sun Changhe slowly said: “For those drilling wells that have completely lost the chance to reach the mantle before the apocalypse arrives… abandon them all.”
There are about 40 such wells.
During previous drilling processes, either due to encountering complex underground environments, or large-scale underground water sources, gas cavities, lava pockets, or other such issues, or encountering rocks with relatively special properties, the drilling speed fell short of expectations.
Now, they have completely lost the possibility of completing the drilling mission on schedule.
There is no need to continue maintaining them.
Of course, this will not lead to a situation of “concentrating power on the remaining drilling wells to accelerate the progress of the others.”
Because the resources, manpower, and technology support obtained for each drilling well have already been stretched to the limit. Adding more manpower and resources will not speed things up.
“Yes.”
“For the remaining 60 drilling wells that still hold some hope… do our utmost and leave the rest to fate.”
They have already done everything possible. Next, they can only pin their hopes on the solidity of their preliminary work, the high precision of geological exploration, the high reliability of the manufactured drilling equipment, and the sufficiently low failure rate.
This seems somewhat helpless, but it is the stark reality.
Following the instructions from the Apocalypse Project Command, in those about 40 drilling bases, the land stopped trembling. The rock dust, which had shrouded the wellhead like a gray giant dragon day and night, slowly disappeared.
The scientists and engineers who had struggled here for two months looked at the devastated land, which resembled an apocalyptic scene, and just shook their heads with a sigh: “Let’s go.”
The drilling team withdrew, and another team arrived here.
They did not stay here too long either, merely placing a few detectors at the bottom of the well before leaving as well.
Although these superdeep wells could not complete the mission of detecting the mantle, they were still very suitable as places to install “Earth stethoscopes,” which could be considered making the best use of waste, without letting it go to waste.
In the other 58 crust bases, the roar of machinery and the bellowing of gray dust dragons continued ceaselessly day and night.
Every drilling team was on high alert at this stage, with all members on duty, maintaining 24-hour vigilance to analyze any geological changes over 20,000 meters underground and quickly adjust drilling plans based on that, minimizing the possibility of serious failures as much as possible.
All outstanding geologists, geophysicists, and others across the entire human world were fully organized to provide scientific support to the drilling teams at all times.
Before this project, the deepest well dug by the human world was only around 12,000 meters deep. As for what the geological environment beyond that depth was like, scientists could only speculate through various indirect detection methods.
In other words, no one truly knew what the underground world beyond 12,000 meters depth was like, let alone 20,000 meters.
Every day of drilling, every meter of increased depth, meant the opening of a new world for the scientists.
This contained countless scientific discoveries. In normal times, this data would drive every relevant scholar mad.
But now, no one was paying attention to those scientific discoveries for the time being. Because they only pertained to details and were unrelated to factors that could trigger a global cataclysmic earthquake.
At this moment, people were only focused on one thing.
How to eliminate these previously completely unknown changes to ensure the ion drilling equipment can smoothly penetrate into the mantle.
“The temperature increase is somewhat beyond previous expectations.”
A geologist frowned tightly: “At 21,000 meters depth, the expected temperature was around 800 degrees, but here it has already risen to 950 degrees.”
“The rock pressure is also higher than expected, which has brought changes to the rock properties; their viscosity and fluidity have both exceeded expectations.”
“The gas content at this position is actually lower than expected. But at such a deep depth, there is still methane present…”
After a somewhat hasty discussion, a guiding expert consensus opinion was quickly formed and issued to every crust base at that moment.
“Based on geological changes at 21,000 meters depth, after comprehensive expert discussion, the following principled adjustments should be made:
First, continue to lower the liquid argon temperature to better cool the drill bit. At the same time, increase the pressure again to counteract rock creep.
Second,…”
In this situation, the number representing the depth continued to increase day by day.
In the Apocalypse Project Command, Sun Changhe clearly saw that among the remaining 58 green dots on that large screen, another one had turned red.
Another ion drilling equipment carrying people’s deep hopes had suffered a major failure, leading to complete scrapping.
Sun Changhe’s expression remained unchanged as he continued to watch quietly.
In his gaze, before long, another green dot changed.
Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, half a month had passed.
The points still showing green across the entire screen numbered only 15.
Across the world, countless people were watching these last 15 pieces of equipment.
“Cut off the public network connection for these 15 bases.”
In another meeting, Zhou Yu solemnly proposed her opinion: “Too much external attention and noise will bring too much psychological pressure to the team, which will instead increase the probability of errors.”
“Agreed.”
The outside world’s gaze was still watching here, but the people working in these 15 bases could no longer perceive it.
Time continued to pass, and the number of green dots decreased further, now down to only 7.
Crust Base 115, the daily routine rock testing was still ongoing.
People would capture the rock particles ejected from the wellhead, analyze their composition, confirm their types, and thus know exactly what stratum their drilling had reached.
Under spectrometer analysis, a special data point caught the attention of that geology expert.
He stood up somewhat tensely, carefully retrieved another sample, and began testing again.
That special data appeared again.
He looked up, his eyes filled with irrepressible joy.
It was olivine!
They had discovered olivine in the rock samples from the bottom of the well!
