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5,158m deep well to help forecast earthquake
BEIJING—A 5,158-meter-deep
well China drilled to get to know about the earth’s crust could
contribute to forecast earthquakes, said scientists.
“Researchers will be able to record the movements of liquid and gas
which lies five kilometers underground. While drilling the well they
have found abnormal movements related to earthquakes,” said Xu Zhiqin,
the chief scientist of the China Continental Scientific Drilling
Engineering Center and member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The well is at Maobei Village of Donghai, a county in the proximity of
the port city of Lianyungang in northern Jiangsu Province, East China.
The drilling operation started in 2001 and was completed in 2005. The
exploration program cost a total of 166 million yuan (US$22 million).
Maobei village was selected as an ideal location of the well drilling as
it is situated on the world’s largest ultra-high-pressure metamorphic
belt, known as the “Dabie-Sulu Mountain fracture belt” and described by
geologists as “a natural research lab for the formation of plates and
global geological changes”.
According to Wang Da, chief commander for the continental scientific
drilling program, an observation stand was built in the well, with a
diameter of 156 millimeters, to facilitate long-term studies on the
earth’s in-depth secrets. “We analyzed the gas data collected about
4,000 km underground before and after the great Sumatra Earthquake
happened on Dec 26, 2004.
There were significant differences. It is possible that one day we could
predict an earthquake by observations on underground gas,” said Xu. The
island of Sumatra is more than 4,000 km away from Jiangsu Province. Xu
said workers had installed detectors in different depths during the
drilling operation, which could not only help forecast earthquakes but
facilitate life science studies by observing microorganism deep down in
the earth’s crust. Researchers would also be able to acquire data useful
for studies on continental plate boundaries and substances in the layer
of the earth between the crust and the core, she said.
The chief scientist said the continental scientific drilling program had
passed national examinations. A five-km-deep well free of ground
intruders is left for future research. “We have set up the first
long-term integrated geophysics research base in Asia. I hope it could
serve the human being.” said Xu. Because of their devastating potential,
there is great interest in predicting the location and time of large
earthquakes.
Although a great deal is known about where earthquakes are likely, there
is currently no reliable way to predict the days or months when an event
will occur in any specific location.
The Sumatra Earthquake, the greatest in 40 years, killed about 300,000
people after triggering a large tsunami which spread outward from off
the Sumatran coast.
Earthquakes around the world killed about 1.2 million people in the 20th
century, including 590,000 in China. The biggest disaster in the country
is a 1976 quake that killed more than 242,000 in Tangshan, Hebei
Province. Statistics show 35 percent of earthquakes measuring seven and
above on the Richter Scale in the world’s continents occurred in China
in the last century. China will build an earthquake-proof system to
correspond with the development of its cities, according to its
2006-2020 earthquake proof and relief plan.
Under the plan, the system will enable all areas in China to basically
have the capability to cope with earthquakes measuring around six on the
Richter Scale by 2020. Measures will also be taken to equip rural areas
with both earthquake-proof facilities and knowledge in relief
procedures. Currently in rural areas earthquakes usually cause heavy
economic loss and casualties due to a lack of earthquake-proof
facilities and relief knowledge.—Xinhua |
