Scientific deep-drilling is the enterprise of strategically digging boreholes to observe and analyse deeper parts of the earth’s crust.
- It offers opportunities and access to study earthquakes and expands our understanding of the planet’s history, rock types, energy resources, life forms, climate change patterns, the evolution of life, and more.
- The Borehole Geophysics Research Laboratory (BGRL) in Karad (Maharashtra), is a specialised institute under the Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Government of India mandated to execute India’s sole scientific deep-drilling programme.
- Under BGRL, the aim is to drill the earth’s crust to a depth of 6 km and conduct scientific observations and analysis to help expand the understanding of reservoir-triggered earthquakes in the active fault zone in the Koyna-Warna region of Maharashtra.
- This Koyna-Warna region has been experiencing frequent and recurrent earthquakes since the Shivaji Sagar Lake, or the Koyna Dam, was impounded in 1962.
- BGRL’s pilot borehole — to a depth of 3 km in Koyna — is complete, and the Ministry of Earth Sciences is committed to completing the task of reaching a depth of 6 km.
