China's first deep-ocean drilling vessel expected to make breakthroughs in sea exploration

China's first domestically designed and built deep-ocean drilling vessel, Meng Xiang, entered service in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Sunday.

Ocean drilling refers to drilling operations conducted on the seabed to study the Earth's internal composition, structural formations and energy resources hidden deep beneath the ocean floor. An ocean drilling vessel is an integrated platform of advanced deep-sea exploration technologies and is currently the only means of sampling from the deep ocean floor.

So far, more than 20 countries worldwide have participated in the International Ocean Discovery Program, while only three countries have built their ocean drilling vessels, with China being one of them, following the U.S.'s JOIDES Resolution and Japan's Chikyu.

With a gross tonnage of 33,000 tonnes, a length of 179.8 meters and a beam of 32.8 meters, Meng Xiang can work continuously for 120 days with a range of up to 15,000 nautical miles. It is currently the only drilling vessel in the world that can perform ultra-deepwater drilling at depths of 11 kilometers – deeper than the JOIDES Resolution's is 7,500 meters and the Chikyu's 9,500 meters.

The drilling vessel is expected to undertake major national scientific projects and marine science drilling tasks in large-scale international science programs.

"It can conduct drilling operations anywhere in the world's major sea areas, and its key role is to solve scientific problems," Wang Chengshan, geologist and member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, told China Media Group.

With penetrating the Moho discontinuity, or Moho, one of the goals, the Meng Xiang will be used to advance human understanding of the deep sea, said Wang.

The Moho is known as the boundary between the Earth's crust and the mantle. The crust is like an eggshell, and only by breaking this layer can people deeply study the internal materials.

The mantle beneath the Moho accounts for four-fifths of the Earth's volume and three-quarters of its mass. It is the Earth's largest "chemical reservoir" full of unsolved mysteries.

Sun Zhen, researcher at Guangzhou Marine Geological Survey (GMGS) under China Geological Survey, said that China's drilling vessel has brought hope to this scientific exploration goal that mankind has been unable to conquer for a long time.

Currently, the drilling support ship, deepwater scientific research dock and the world's largest ocean drilling core repository, have all been put into use, providing strong onshore and offshore support for the operation of Meng Xiang, which is expected to complete its first ocean drilling in the next two years.

Xu Zhenqiang, director of GMGS, said that the vessel will target major cutting-edge scientific issues such as the Moho drilling, the safe, efficient and green development and utilization of deep-sea energy resources, as well as marine disaster prevention and reduction, focusing on serving national energy resource security, science and technology self-reliance and the needs of building a maritime power.

A mobile national laboratory

Featuring high intelligence and integration, the world's first hydraulic lifting rig capable of both oil and gas exploration as well as core sampling is installed on the vessel, supporting a maximum drilling depth of 11 kilometers.

Besides a world-leading drilling capability, the vessel also accommodates nine specialized research labs covering fields such as geology, paleomagnetism, microbiology and marine science.

Spanning over 3,000 square meters, the laboratory area of ​​the drilling vessel is the largest among current scientific research ships, said Zhou Yang, leader of the manufacturing supervision group at the GMGS.

"It basically covers the major disciplines in the entire field of ocean sciences, including environmental monitoring of the atmosphere and water bodies, and analytical testing of basic geology, chemistry and biology," said Zhou.

Zhou introduced the laser microscope in the microbial identification room, which has an optical resolution of more than 1,000 times, and can accurately obtain two-dimensional and three-dimensional structural information of organisms.

"The vessel, in a sense, is a mobile national laboratory," said Zhou, who noted that it enables fast and accurate onboard analysis.