Researchers Drill World's Deepest Hole for Science in the Ocean Floor

One question: Why?

I don't really understand. Here in Western
Pennsylvania drillers are drilling both vertical
and horizontal bores into the Marcellus shale formation
to extract natural gas. They are now drilling In
Ohio and Pennsylvania into the Utica shale formation
for the same purpose.
These shale formations are up to and beyond 8,000
feet, and they are drilling them and fracking them
every day.

Could someone explain this? The world record is
8,024 feet? Or did someone make a typo?

In reference to my comment above.

From Wikipedia: Before 2000, low production gas wells were completed to the Marcellus, but these had a low rate of return, requiring a relatively long capital recovery period, although they did have a very long productive life.[23] There are wells in Tioga and Broome County, NY which are 50 years old or more. Now, to extract the shale gas at more commercially viable rates,[21] directional drilling is done to depths of 7,000 to 10,000 ft (2,100 to 3,000 m) underground to reach the formation, and then water and a mixture of chemicals is pumped into the rock under high pressure in a process known as hydraulic fracturing to release the gas from the low permeability shale.[

Profit dictates the depth or location of the drilling bit.

Rebecca Boyle,

This is a very poorly researched article! It would have taken less than a minute on Google to discover this:

"Transocean Ltd. (NYSE: RIG) announced that its ultra-deepwater semisubmersible rig Deepwater Horizon recently drilled the deepest oil and gas well ever while working for BP and its co-owners on the Tiber well in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Working with BP, the Transocean crews on the Deepwater Horizon drilled the well to 35,050 vertical depth and 35,055 feet measured depth (MD), or more than six miles, while operating in 4,130 feet of water.

"This impressive well depth record reflects the intensive planning and focus on effective operations by BP and the drilling crews of the Deepwater Horizon," said Robert L. Long, Transocean Ltd.'s Chief Executive Officer. "Congratulations to everyone involved."

These achievements are the latest in Transocean's history of world and other records dating back to the 1950s. In 2005, the ultra-deepwater drillship Discoverer Spirit set the record for the longest Gulf of Mexico oil and gas well at 34,189 feet, MD. Most recently, the Transocean jackup GSF Rig 127 drilled the industry’s longest extended-reach well in 2008 while working for Maersk Oil Qatar AS at 40,320 feet MD with a 35,770-foot horizontal section. The well was drilled offshore Qatar in 36 days and was incident-free.

Transocean also holds the current world water-depth record of operating in 10,011 feet of water set while working for Chevron in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico."

What you failed to note in your article is that this Japanese effort is the deepest subsea RESEARCH well (i.e. not for commercial hydrocarbon exploration).

Oops. Rebecca did note that this wellbore is "science-motivated".

My comment above was the Readers Digest condense version of P.Eng. But in hindsight, I prefer his. ;)

Deepest well ever for science was Kola Superdeep Borehole. Look it up on Wikipedia. Total depth was 12,262 meters or 40,230 feet. The Japanese effort started underwater with a thin crust to go through. The Kola effort by the USSR back in the 1970's was all on Ground. Bore hole wandered by 870 meters horizontally from the entry point in its depth.