November 24th.

The Antarctic research airship converted from the Sperm Whale 003 transport airship flew from Madagascar to Antarctica.

Weng Xuehai, who was transferred from Egypt, and Kai Yin, the head of the scientific expedition team? Francis, right on the expedition airship.

Look at the data on the hologram.

Weng Xuehai raised his head: "Kaiyin, go 27 kilometers to the southeast, and you will reach your destination." ”

"Ok, Doctor!" Kain picked up the walkie-talkie: "Advance 27 kilometers south-east and take precautions against strong winds." ”

In fact, it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and it is a good time for the annual Antarctic scientific expedition.

However, Weng Xuehai and several researchers from the Department of Geology looked at the earth model intently, and 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 stratigraphic composition.

At this time, the location of the airship was in Wilkes Land, Antarctica.

The specific coordinates are probably in the area of 80 degrees south latitude and 120 degrees east longitude.

Weng Xuehai zooms in on the simulated strata of the Vergos Land, an impact basin with a diameter of about 500 kilometers.

It's just that the Antarctic ice sheet hides the existence of this huge impact crater, but through magnetic field radar and gravity satellites, anomalies can still be found here.

A number of scientific groups are studying Wilkes Basin and Wilkes quality tumors.

Although the international academic community has not yet answered whether Wilkes mass tumors were formed by the eruption of the mantle plume or by the impact of an asteroid.

However, the Department of Geology of Homo sapiens determined that the Wilkes mass tumor was formed by an asteroid impact through magnetic field analysis.

The evidence is that in the process of magnetic field cutting, it is found that there are a large number of element-dependent magnetic field signals in the center of the Wilkes Basin, and their abundance is very high.

The amount of the element on Earth is very small, but on some asteroids, the content is unusually high.

Therefore, researchers from the Department of Geology preliminarily determined that this was an impact crater, and the Wilkes mass tumor was the asteroid wreckage.

In addition to this, a large number of magnetic field signals for gold and other heavy metals have been found in the central area of the Wilkes Basin.

……

The airship flew for twenty minutes before finally reaching the target.

Kain immediately ordered: "Captain Muqing, please start decentralizing the container module according to the plan." ”

"No problem."

The scientific research airship carried 13,000 tons of materials, and the core materials were modular containers, a total of 634 of these module containers with a single weight of 8~20 tons.

The first batch of module containers to be put down were foundation modules, a total of 100 modules.

After the foundation module is unfolded, a 30,000-square-meter silver-gray metal foundation is formed, and the foundation module has a latch device to hold other module containers.

The next module containers to be put down are dormitory modules, kitchen modules, shower modules, storage modules, heating modules, and water purification modules, a total of 136 modular containers for life types.

The modules are stacked on top of each other like building blocks to form several five-story buildings with a height of 15 meters.

Then there are nuclear power modules, power distribution modules, greenhouse modules, scientific research modules, equipment modules, and so on.

It was even paired with four automatic cannon modules, which were turned into defensive towers, which were placed in 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 members of the scientific expedition team, as well as 6 people from Weng Xuehai who came to assist, all got off the airship and lived in the dormitory of the base.

The Sperm Whale 003 quickly flew up to the stratosphere through vacuuming, and returned to Madagascar Island at full speed, ready 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.

It's been about a week.

The base not only collected a large amount of magnetic field data through magnetic field radar, but also drilled a well at a depth of 2,000 meters.

Core analysis room.

Weng Xuehai, who was wearing a protective suit, and several assistants jumped over the part of the core of the ice cap, and instead focused on the rock core.

With the compositional mass spectrometry analysis of the cores at a depth of 500 meters ~ 2000 meters, they found that the heavy metal content in these cores is very high.

"As expected." Weng Xuehai's eyes were full of joy.

According to the data of magnetic field detection, the asteroid is about 55 kilometers in diameter.

Despite a collision with the Earth's crust, the asteroid did not break apart because its core component is iron and nickel, but remained relatively intact and embedded in the earth's crust.

That is to say, starting from 850 meters below the ice sheet and extending 50~55 kilometers downward, all of which are stars of this asteroid.

The volume of this asteroid is 100 trillion cubic meters, the iron content is about 20~30%, and the iron ore alone is 140~210 trillion tons, which is thousands of times the current shallow iron ore reserves on the earth's surface.

Of course, iron ore and nickel ore and the like, Homo sapiens didn't really care.

But the gold and other heavy metals contained in this asteroid are the things that Homo sapiens has ambitioned for.

According to the core samples collected so far, the average gold content per ton of ore has reached about 40~60 grams.

While it is unlikely that the gold content of the entire asteroid's interior will be that high, it is estimated that at least 0.8% of the ore in it can reach this level.

This means that this asteroid contains 2~300 million tons of gold.

With such a huge gold reserve, the lead-tungsten gold electric heating materials that were used to be used to deduct and search can finally be let go.

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This is the reason why Homo sapiens hurriedly sent a scientific research airship over and quickly established an outpost.

As for the Antarctic Convention, Homo sapiens did not intend to comply with it at all.

You must know that this is 2~300 million tons of gold, even if it is the enemy of the world, Homo sapiens will not hesitate.

As long as you eat this super mine, it will not only be enough for Homo sapiens to carry out industrial upgrading, but also greatly reduce production costs.

At present, electric heating materials can only be used in the aerospace field, because their production costs are too high, and a 100 megawatt thermoelectric generator unit needs to use 250 kilograms of gold.

At the current gold price, 250 kilograms of gold would cost 150 million gold dollars, which is obviously too expensive.

And once the gold mines in the Wilkes Basin are taken, the cost of gold production can be pressed to about the same level as copper, and the cost will drop by a thousand times, and everyone 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.

Dispatching a scientific research airship to land on the beach is only one of the arrangements.

In order to ensure the safety of the entire mining area, Homo sapiens must completely control the entire Wilkes land, especially within 100 kilometers of the center.

Therefore, Li Qingye ordered the Defense Department to form the Antarctic Fleet, and the Feathered Serpent Legion was also accelerating.

Although there is a high probability that other forces will not fight with Homo sapiens, in the face of such huge interests, it is difficult to guarantee that some people will take risks.

Li Qingye ordered Homo sapiens to strengthen their armament, and at the same time, to increase the speed of development in outer space.

The purpose of strengthening armament is to deter foreign powers, while strengthening the development of outer space is to provide another way back, so that Homo sapiens has the confidence to flip the table.

Of course, for the large gold mines in the Wilkes Basin, Homo sapiens must be strictly guarded internally to ensure that secrets will not be leaked in a short period of time.

In order to cover the exploitation plan of the Wilkes Basin, Li Qingye has ordered the Ministry of Science to build five more Antarctic research stations and five Arctic research stations to cover people's eyes and ears.