Drilling deeper than ever before

In a feat of human perseverance and ingenuity, on March 4, the diamond-tipped drill boring deep into the Earth at the Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, successfully crossed the 10,000-meter mark.

The drill hole, named Shenditake 1, with a designed depth of 11,100 meters is China's deepest well for scientific exploration, according to China National Petroleum Corp, its operator.

The progress made on the borehole signifies a major breakthrough for China in the field of deep-Earth exploration, following the country's deep-space and deep-sea scientific endeavors.