On a wide field in Wuchengdaren village in Laizhou, Shandong province, a 30-meter drilling tower rises against the flat farmland horizon. In about six months, this rig will have pierced nearly 3 kilometers into the Earth, retrieving rock cores that could verify the presence of gold deposits.

　　The project, launched on Thursday by the Shandong Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, is part of a broader campaign comprising 36 exploration projects with a total investment of 76 million yuan ($11 million). The goal is to add 20 to 50 metric tons of gold reserves in the Jiaodong area within a single year.

　　Jiaodong, a peninsula along the southern coast of the Bohai Sea in eastern Shandong, already holds a quarter of China's proven gold reserves, making it the world's third-largest gold district.

　　However, after intensive mining for decades, even centuries in some places, easily accessible surface and shallow deposits have long been exhausted in the region.

　　Therefore, efforts in recent years have been redirected toward deeper explorations into the Earth.

　　In the past, drilling depths were mostly below 2,000 meters. Nowadays, the bureau has mastered the core technology of ultra-deep, ultra-inclined and ultra-difficult small-diameter drilling.

　　The bureau now undertakes 83 percent of the nation's scientific drilling projects that are above 3,000 meters. It even set a new record of full core extraction at a depth of 2,843.17 meters in global marine scientific drilling.

　　In 2023, the No 6 geological team uncovered a large gold deposit in Xilaokou village, Rushan of Weihai, with nearly 50 tons of gold metal identified, making it the largest gold deposit in the Weihai area to date and marking a significant breakthrough in deep mineral exploration in the northeastern margin of the Jiaolai Basin.