China's Mengxiang (Dream) ocean drilling vessel just hit a national record: 5,000 meters of deep-sea drilling capacity. During a 30-day voyage in the South China Sea basin, the vessel pulled up a 4.27-meter basalt sample using a self-developed drill. That makes China the third country, after the US and Japan, to retrieve hard rock samples from a deep ocean basin with a drilling vessel. Rock like this holds clues to how ocean basins form and how the Earth's crust has evolved over millions of years. #DeepSea #OceanDrilling #Geoscience #China #Science