Scientific drilling starts in Qaidam Basin (7/20/2008)

Joint drilling project team

A Sino-German joint project of scientific drilling was formally launched on 31 May in the west Qaidam Basin. The work is jointly carried out by researchers from the CAS Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP), Germany's Tuebingen University (TU), US Stanford University, and Lanzhou University. Prof. FANG Xiaomin from ITP and Prof. Erwin Appel from TU are assigned co-principal investigators of the project.

Lying in the north of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Qaidam Basin receives huge thick Cenozoic deposits up to 10,000 meters recording complete and detailed histories of uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, basin evolution and Asian inland desertification.

This joint drilling project is planned to reach a 1,200m-deep core in the alkaline region at the local sedimentation center of the west Qaidam sub-basin. Then combining with natural outcrops nearby the deep core, it is expected to reconstruct the high resolution and precision chronologic sequence and to confirm the occurrences of seismostratigraphic boundaries.

Besides, the exploration of the deep core will also serve to reconstruct a high-resolution pattern of the history of climate change since late Miocene so as to better understand the formation and evolution of arid salt lakes as well as the relationship between such lakes and the resources of salt, oil and gas.

Moreover, it's also aimed to reveal the interaction between the pateau uplift, climate change and soil erosion, especially the relationship between the plateau uplift and aridity-monsoon system in Asia. And new clues for the study of mineral resources such as oil, gas and sylvite are also expected to pop up, which is of much significance for the energy sustainability.

Except for following the international drilling rules, several new techniques have been applied in this project to ensure a high core-acquisition rate in the alkaline region and success in obtaining intact cores.

So far, the field team has drilled 306m deep in the salt and saliferous beds. With a core- acquisition rate up to above 95%, the drilling reveals a stratum interlaced with mudstone beds in grey black or green grey and salt beds in white. The discovery of the salt and brine deposits in the west Qaidam Basin is expected to bring forward a larger and deeper exploration of these reserves.

Co-funded by the CAS, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the German BMBF and DFG, the project is expected to be fulfilled by the upcoming mid-October.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by the Chinese Academy of Sciences

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