Reborn Before the Apocalypse: My Backing is the Nation

Chapter 161 Temporary Decisions
Maintaining a tunneling speed of 100 meters per day at a depth of 2 meters was unimaginable for the human world just a few decades ago.

After the Kola Superdeep Borehole reached a depth of 1.2 meters, its drilling speed dropped to only about 0.1 meters per day, which shows how astonishing this current speed is.

Even so, this is still far too slow for the current human world.

In the conference room of the Doomsday Project Command Center, numerous experts and advisory group members faced this reality with serious expressions.

After a somewhat lengthy period of thought, Sun Changhe slowly said, "For those wells that have completely lost the chance to reach the mantle before the apocalypse... let's give up on them."

There are approximately 40 wells in this section.

In previous drilling operations, the drilling speed was slower than expected due to encountering complex underground environments, large areas of underground water sources, gas cavities, magma chambers, or rocks with special properties.

At this point, the possibility of completing the drilling mission on schedule has been completely lost.

There's no need to continue this.

Of course, this does not lead to a situation where "efforts can be concentrated on the remaining wells to accelerate the progress of the rest of the drilling."

The resources, manpower, and technological support available for each well have already been exhausted. Adding more manpower and resources will not speed things up.

"Yes."

"The remaining 60 wells still have a chance of success... let's do our best and leave the rest to fate."

We have done everything we can. Now, we can only hope that our preliminary work is thorough enough, that our geological exploration is accurate enough, and that our drilling equipment is reliable enough and has a low failure rate.

This seems somewhat helpless, but it is the undeniable reality.

Following the instructions of the Doomsday Project command, the earth stopped trembling at the approximately 40 drilling sites. The rock dust that had shrouded the entrances of the wells, resembling a gray dragon, slowly disappeared.

The scientists and engineers who had been working here for two months looked at the devastated land, which resembled an apocalyptic scene, and simply shook their heads and sighed, "Let's go."

The drilling team left, and another team arrived.

They didn't stay there for long, only placing a few probes at the bottom of the well before leaving.

Although these ultra-deep wells cannot complete the task of probing the mantle, they are still very suitable places to place "Earth's stethoscopes," which can be considered as making use of waste and should not be wasted.

In the other 58 crustal bases, the roaring sounds and the howling of the gray dust dragons continued day and night.

During this phase, every drilling team is on high alert, with all members on duty 24 hours a day to analyze any geological changes more than 2 meters underground and adjust the drilling plan accordingly to minimize the possibility of serious failures.

All the best geologists and geophysicists in the world were organized to provide scientific support to the drilling team at all times.

Prior to this project, the deepest well ever dug by humankind was only about 1.2 meters deep. Scientists could only speculate about the geological environment beyond that depth through various indirect detection methods.

In other words, no one really knows what the underground world at a depth of more than 1.2 meters is like, let alone 2 meters.

Every day of drilling, every meter of depth gained, means the opening of a new world for scientists.

This contains countless scientific discoveries. In ordinary times, these data would drive any scholar involved in the field crazy.

But for now, no one is paying attention to those scientific findings. Because they are merely details, and not related to factors capable of triggering massive global earthquakes.

At this moment, people are only focused on one thing.

How to eliminate these previously unknown changes and ensure that the ion drilling equipment can successfully penetrate deep into the mantle? "The temperature increase is somewhat beyond what was previously expected."

A geologist frowned: "At a depth of 2.1 meters, the expected temperature is around 800 degrees Celsius, but here it has already risen to 950 degrees Celsius."

"The rock pressure was also higher than expected, which led to changes in the rock properties, with their viscosity and fluidity exceeding expectations."

"The gas concentration at this location is lower than expected. But at such a depth, there's even methane present..."

After a somewhat rushed discussion, a guiding consensus of experts was quickly formed and distributed to every crustal base at that moment.

"Based on the geological changes at a depth of 2.1 meters, and after comprehensive discussion by experts, it is believed that 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, the pressure should be increased again to counteract rock creep.

two,……"

Under these circumstances, the number representing depth continued to increase day by day.

In the Doomsday Project Command Center, Sun Changhe clearly saw that one of the remaining 58 green dots on the large screen had turned red.

Another ion drilling device, which embodies people's deep hopes, has suffered a major malfunction and has been rendered completely unusable.

Sun Changhe remained expressionless, continuing to watch quietly.

Before long, another green dot changed in his sight.

Time flies, and half a month has passed in the blink of an eye.

At this moment, there are only 15 green dots left on the entire screen.

Countless people around the world are watching these 15 remaining devices.

“Disconnect these 15 bases from the public internet.”

During another meeting, Zhou Yu solemnly expressed his opinion: "Too much external attention and noise will bring too much psychological pressure to the team, which will increase the probability of mistakes."

"agree."

The outside world is still watching this place, but the people working in these 15 bases can no longer feel it.

Time continued to pass, and the number of green dots decreased again, now reduced to only 7.

At the Earth's crust 115 base, routine daily rock testing is still underway.

People capture the rock particles ejected from the wellhead, analyze their composition, and identify their type, thus knowing what level their drilling has reached.

Under the analysis of the spectrometer, a special data caught the attention of the geology expert.

He stood up somewhat nervously, carefully retrieved another sample, and began testing again.

That particular data reappeared.

He looked up, his eyes filled with uncontrollable joy.

That's peridot!
We have discovered olivine in the rock samples from the bottom of the well!
(End of this chapter)