China sets new record in core drilling at Nam Co Lake

(ECNS) -- The research team completed core drilling in Nam Co Lake, the second largest lake in southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region on Wednesday.

Seven holes were drilled during the project, achieving a record-breaking drilling depth of 510.2 meters on the 7th hole in the lake. The team extracted a lake sediment core with a length of 951.12 meters from beneath the lakebed.

Sediment core can be used to study climatic and environmental changes on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau and evolution of the lakes over the past one million years, said Wang Junbo, team leader from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The sediment core preserved at the bottom of the lake contains a wealth of information about climate and environmental changes, including some important biological community components, such as diatoms.

Located between the cities of Lhasa and Nagqu on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, Nam Co Lake is the second largest in Xizang with a maximum depth of about 100 meters and a water surface elevation of 4,718 meters.

More than 70 scientists from China, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and other countries joined the scientific expedition.