The Dayang Yihao (Ocean No. 1) research vessel, currently carrying out leg 2 of China’s Dayang Cruise 39, has reported good news: the mid-to-deep-hole core sampling drill rig completed its work at the second station in the Yuhuang hydrothermal field on the Southwest Indian Ridge, recovering China’s first deep-sea polymetallic sulphide core.
The hole was drilled to a depth of 7.6 metres, the deepest to date. The recovered core has a total length of 2.7 metres, comprising 40 centimetres of overlying sediment and 2.3 metres of massive sulphide. Geology team leader Lyu Shihui estimated that the sulphide orebody at this station is at least 7.2 metres thick.
The mid-to-deep-hole core sampling drill rig is a special-purpose core drilling device developed independently by China for the exploration of deep seabed mineral resources. According to the cruise’s chief scientist Li Huaiming, the rig is being used on the ocean expedition to obtain deep sulphide core samples from hydrothermal fields, in order to understand the spatial distribution and grade of the sulphides there and provide a basis for sulphide resource evaluation. The results demonstrate that the rig’s overall performance is quite stable. The successful sampling will help obtain more complete samples and data, and will help drive China’s fulfilment of its Southwest Indian Ocean sulphide exploration contract.
According to plan, the expedition will use the drill rig to obtain more complete core samples and carry out a resource evaluation of the sulphides in the Southwest Indian Ocean contract area.
