Chapter 420 Good News
November 24th.
The Antarctic research airship transformed from the Sperm Whale 003 transport airship flew from Madagascar to Antarctica.
Weng Xuehai, who was transferred from the Suez branch, and Cain Francis, the leader of the scientific expedition team, were on the scientific research airship.
Look at the data on the holographic map.
Weng Xuehai raised his head: "Kain, go 27 kilometers southeast and you'll reach your destination."
"OK, doctor!" Kaine picked up the walkie-talkie: "Go 27 kilometers east-south, and be careful against strong winds."
In fact, it is summer in the southern hemisphere, which is a good time for the annual Antarctic scientific expedition.
However, Weng Xuehai and several researchers from the Department of Geology concentrated on looking at the earth model. Through the high-power magnetic field radar and supercomputing carried by the airship, they already had a preliminary understanding of the nearby stratigraphic structure and composition.
The location of the airship at this time is in Wilkes Land, Antarctica.
The specific coordinates are probably in the area of 80 degrees south latitude and 120 degrees east longitude.
Weng Xuehai zoomed in on the simulated strata of Wilkes Land, an impact basin about 500 kilometers in diameter.
It's just that the Antarctic ice cap has concealed the existence of this huge impact crater, but through magnetic field radar and gravity satellites, anomalies here can still be discovered.
Many scientific research groups are studying the Wilkes Basin and Wilkes Mass Tumor.
Although the international academic community does not have a definite answer as to whether the Wilkes Mass Tumor was formed by a mantle plume eruption or an asteroid impact.
However, the Department of Geology of Homo sapiens determined through magnetic field analysis that the Wilkes mass was formed by an asteroid impact.
The evidence is that during the process of positioning the magnetic field slices, it was discovered that there is a large amount of iridium element magnetic field signals in the center of the Wilkes Basin, and its abundance is very high.
The content of iridium on Earth is very small, but on some asteroids, the content is unusually high.
Therefore, researchers from the Department of Geology initially determined that this was an impact crater and that the Wilkes mass was the remains of the asteroid.
In addition, a large amount of magnetic field signals of gold and other heavy metals were found in the central area of the Wilkes Basin.
…
The airship flew for twenty minutes and finally reached the target.
Kain immediately ordered: "Captain Mu Qing, please start decentralizing the container modules as planned."
"no problem."
The scientific research airship carried 13,000 tons of materials, and the core materials were modular containers. There were a total of 634 of these modular containers weighing between 8 and 20 tons.
The first batch of module containers to be put down were foundation modules, 100 in total.
After the foundation module is unfolded, a silver-gray metal foundation with an area of 30,000 square meters is formed. The foundation module has a latch device that can fix other module containers.
The next modular containers to be put down are dormitory modules, kitchen modules, shower modules, storage modules, heating modules, and water purification modules, a total of 136 living-type modular containers.
These modules are stacked together like building blocks to form several five-story buildings with a height of 15 meters.
Then there are nuclear power module, power distribution module, greenhouse module, scientific research module, equipment module and so on.
It is even equipped with four automatic cannon modules to turn into defense towers and are placed at the four corners of the base.
After two days of unloading, the airship finally put down all the module containers and some small vehicles.
The 153 people from the scientific expedition team, as well as 6 people from Weng Xuehai who came to assist, all got off the airship and moved into the dormitory at the base.
Sperm Whale 003, on the other hand, quickly flew into the stratosphere through vacuuming and returned to Madagascar at full speed, preparing to transport the next batch of supplies.
Weng Xuehai, Kai Yin and others quickly deployed magnetic field radar to further detect the asteroid debris underground.
over time.
About a week has passed.
The base not only collected a large amount of magnetic field data through magnetic field radar, but also drilled a well with a depth of 2,000 meters.
Core analysis room.
Weng Xuehai, wearing protective clothing, and several assistants skipped the ice sheet core and focused on the rock core.
After conducting mass spectrometry analysis of the composition of rock cores with a depth of 500 meters to 2,000 meters, they found that the content of heavy metals in these cores was very high.
"As expected." Weng Xuehai's eyes were full of joy.
According to magnetic field detection data, the diameter of the asteroid is about 55 kilometers.
Although it collided with the earth's crust once, because its core composition was iron and nickel, the asteroid did not fall apart. Instead, it remained relatively intact and embedded in the earth's crust.
In other words, starting from 850 meters below the ice sheet and extending downward for 50 to 55 kilometers, they are all the stars of this asteroid.
The asteroid has a volume of 100 trillion cubic meters and an iron content of about 20 to 30%. The iron ore alone contains 140 to 210 megatons, which is thousands of times the current shallow iron ore reserves on the earth's surface. .
Of course, Homo sapiens doesn't actually care about things like iron ore and nickel ore.
But the gold and other heavy metals contained in this asteroid are what the Homo sapiens company is determined to obtain.
According to the core samples collected so far, the average gold content per ton of ore reaches about 40 to 60 grams.
Although the gold content inside the entire asteroid cannot be so high, it is estimated that at least 0.8% of the ore can reach this level.
This means that this asteroid contains 200 to 300 million tons of gold.
With such a huge gold reserve, the lead, tungsten and gold electric heating materials that were used before by Kuoko Sosou can finally be used freely.
This is the reason why Homo sapiens hastily dispatched scientific research airships and quickly established outposts.
As for the Antarctic Convention, Homo sapiens has no intention of complying with it.
You must know that this is 200 to 300 million tons of gold. Even if it is the enemy of the whole world, Homo sapiens will not hesitate.
As long as this super large mine is eaten, it will not only be enough for Homo sapiens to upgrade the industry internally, but also greatly reduce production costs.
Currently, electrothermal materials can only be used in the aerospace field because their production costs are too high. A 100-megawatt thermoelectric generator unit requires 250 kilograms of gold.
At the current gold price, 250 kilograms of gold requires 150 million gold dollars, which is obviously too expensive.
And once the gold mine in the Wilkes Basin is captured, the cost of gold production can be reduced to about the same as copper. The cost reduction will be thousands of times, and anyone else will go crazy.
After Li Qingye received the news in early November, he quickly took the time to hold a small management meeting and made various arrangements.
Sending a scientific research airship to land on the beach is just one of the arrangements.
In order to ensure the safety of the entire mining area, Homo sapiens must completely capture the entire Wilkes Land, especially within 100 kilometers of the center, and must not give up an inch of land.
Therefore, Li Qingye ordered the Ministry of Defense to form an Antarctic convoy fleet, and the Quetzalcoatl Legion was also accelerating.
Although there is a high probability that other forces will not go to war with Homo sapiens, but in the face of such huge interests, it is difficult to guarantee that someone will take the risk.
Li Qingye ordered all branches of Homo sapiens to strengthen their security forces and at the same time speed up the development of outer space.
Strengthening security is to deter the great powers, while strengthening the exploration of outer space is to provide another escape route so that Homo sapiens can have the confidence to overturn the table.
Of course, regarding the large gold mine in the Wilkes Basin, Homo sapiens must be strictly guarded internally to ensure that the secrets will not be leaked in a short time.
In order to cover the mining plan in the Wilkes Basin, Li Qingye has ordered the Ministry of Science to build 5 more Antarctic scientific research stations and 5 Arctic scientific research stations to cover up people's eyes.
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