The largest mine in the world on the remote Kola Peninsula in northern Russia. Against the backdrop of the rusting ruins of an abandoned research station, the deepest hole in the world gapes.
Now closed and sealed with a welded metal plate, the Kola Superdeep Borehole is the remnant of a largely forgotten gamble of the human race, directed not at the stars but into the depths of the Earth.
Rumors circulated that a deep well had reached hell: screams and groans of people could be heard from the abyss - as if this was the reason for closing the station and the well. In fact, the reason was different.
The city of Mirny is known for its largest mine in the world: a deep well on the Kola Peninsula is the world's largest man-made hole. 1722 m - deep, so deep that all flights over it were forbidden, because too many helicopters crashed due to suction into the hole.
The deepest hole drilled in the name of science - evidence of the Precambrian period of life was found here. The human race knows about distant galaxies, but knows little about what lies beneath their very feet. Of course, the project produced a huge amount of geological data, most of which showed how little we know about our planet.
The US and USSR fought for space exploration supremacy in the space race, another competition was between the two countries' greatest drillers: the US "Project Mohole" on the Pacific coast of Mexico—was aborted in 1966 due to lack of funding; Councils, a project of the Interdepartmental Scientific Council for the Study of the Earth's Interior and Ultra-Deep Drilling, from 1970 to 1994 on the Kola Peninsula. The study of the Earth is limited to ground observations and seismic studies, but the Kola borehole gave a direct look at the structure of the earth's crust.
Kola Super Deep Well Drilled to Hell
The drill at Kola has never encountered a layer of basalt. Instead, the granite rock was beyond the twelfth kilometer. Surprisingly enough, the rocks of many kilometers are saturated with water. Previously, it was believed that free water should not exist at such great depths.
But the most intriguing discovery is the discovery of biological activity in rocks that are more than two billion years old. The most striking evidence of life comes from microscopic fossils: the preserved remains of twenty-four species of single-celled marine plants, otherwise known as plankton.
Normally, fossils can be found in limestone rocks and silica deposits, but these "microfossils" were encased in organic compounds that have remained surprisingly intact despite extreme environmental pressures and temperatures.
The Kola drilling was forced to stop due to unexpectedly high temperatures encountered. While the temperature gradient in the bowels of the earth. At a depth of approximately 10,000 feet, the temperature increased at a rapid rate reaching 180°C (or 356°F) at the bottom of the hole, as opposed to the expected 100°C (212°F). Also unexpected was the decrease in rock density.
Beyond this point, the rocks had greater porosity and permeability: in combination with high temperatures, they began to behave like plastic. This is why drilling has become practically impossible.
A repository of core samples can be found in the nickel-mining town of Zapolyarny, about ten kilometers south of the hole. With its ambitious mission and contribution to geology and biology, the Kola super-deep well remains the most important relic of Soviet science.
Penetrating into those secrets that are under our feet is no easier than learning all the secrets of the Universe above our heads. And perhaps even more difficult, because in order to look into the depths of the Earth, a very deep well is needed.
The goals of drilling are different (oil production, for example), but ultra-deep (more than 6 km) wells are primarily needed by scientists who want to know what is interesting inside our planet. Where are such "windows" to the center of the Earth and what is the name of the deepest drilled well, we will tell you in this article. First, just one explanation.
Drilling can be done both vertically downwards and at an angle to the earth's surface. In the second case, the extent can be very large, but the depth, if measured from the mouth (the beginning of the well on the surface) to the deepest point in the bowels, is less than those that run perpendicular.
An example is one of the wells of the Chayvinskoye field, the length of which has reached 12,700 m, but in depth it is significantly inferior to the deepest wells.
This well with a depth of 7520 m is located on the territory of modern Western Ukraine. However, work on it was carried out back in the USSR in 1975-1982.
The purpose of creating this one of the deepest wells in the USSR was the extraction of minerals (oil and gas), but the study of the bowels of the earth was also an important task.
9 En-Yakhinskaya well
Not far from the city of Novy Urengoy in the Yamalo-Nenets district. The purpose of drilling the Earth was to determine the composition of the earth's crust at the drilling site and to determine the profitability of developing large depths for mining.
As is usually the case with ultra-deep wells, the subsoil presented the researchers with many "surprises". For example, at a depth of about 4 km, the temperature reached +125 (higher than the calculated one), and after another 3 km, the temperature was already +210 degrees. Nevertheless, scientists completed their research, and in 2006 the well was liquidated.
8 Saatli in Azerbaijan
In the USSR, one of the deepest wells in the world, Saatli, was drilled on the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan. It was planned to bring its depth to 11 km and conduct various studies related to both the structure of the earth's crust and the development of oil at different depths.
Interested in
However, it was not possible to drill such a deep well, as it happens very, very often. During operation, machines often fail due to extremely high temperatures and pressures; the well is curved, since the hardness of different rocks is not uniform; often a minor breakdown entails such problems that their solution requires more funds than the creation of a new one.
So in this case, despite the fact that the materials obtained as a result of drilling were very valuable, the work had to be stopped at around 8324 m.
7 Zisterdorf - the deepest in Austria
Another deep well was drilled in Austria, near the town of Zisterdorf. Nearby were gas and oil fields, and geologists hoped that an ultra-deep well would make it possible to make super-profits in the field of mining.
Indeed, natural gas was discovered at a very considerable depth - to the despair of specialists, it was impossible to extract it. Further drilling ended in an accident, the walls of the well collapsed.
It did not make sense to restore, they decided to drill another nearby, but nothing interesting for the industrialists could be found in it.
6 Universities in the USA
One of the deepest wells on Earth is the University in the USA. Its depth is 8686 m. The materials obtained as a result of drilling are of considerable interest, as they provide new material about the structure of the planet on which we live.
Surprisingly, as a result, it turned out that it was not scientists who were right, but science fiction writers: there are layers of minerals in the bowels, and life exists at great depths - however, we are talking about bacteria!
In the 1990s, drilling of the ultra-deep well Hauptborung began in Germany. It was planned to bring its depth to 12 km, but, as is usually the case with ultra-deep mines, the plans were not given success. Already at around 7 meters, problems began with the machines: drilling vertically down became impossible, the mine began to deviate more and more to the side. Each meter was given with difficulty, and the temperature grew extremely.
Finally, when the heat reached 270 degrees, and endless accidents and failures exhausted everyone, it was decided to suspend work. This happened at a depth of 9.1 km, which makes the Hauptborung well one of the deepest.
The scientific material obtained from the drilling has become the basis for thousands of studies, and the mine itself is currently used for tourism purposes.
4 Baden Unit
In the US, Lone Star attempted to drill an ultra-deep well in 1970. The location near the city of Anadarko in Oklahoma was not chosen by chance: here, wildlife and high scientific potential create a convenient opportunity for both drilling a well and studying it.
The work was carried out for more than a year, and during this time they drilled to a depth of 9159 m, which makes it possible to include it among the deepest mines in the world.
And finally, we present the three deepest wells in the world. In third place is Bertha Rogers - the world's first ultra-deep well, which, however, did not remain the deepest for long. After only a short time, the deepest well in the USSR, the Kola, appeared.
Bert Rogers was drilled by GHK, a mining company, mainly natural gas. The aim of the work was to search for gas at great depths. Work began in 1970, when very little was known about the earth's interior.
The company had high hopes for a place in Washita County, because there are many minerals in Oklahoma, and at that time scientists thought that there were entire layers of oil and gas in the thickness of the earth. However, 500 days of work and huge funds invested in the project turned out to be useless: the drill melted in a layer of liquid sulfur, and gas or oil could not be found.
In addition, scientific research was not carried out during the drilling, since the well was only of commercial importance.
2 KTB-Oberpfalz
In second place in our ranking is the German well Oberpfalz, which has reached a depth of almost 10 km.
This mine holds the record as the deepest vertical well, since it goes to a depth of 7500 m without deviation to the side! This is an unprecedented figure, because the mines at great depths inevitably bend, but the unique equipment used by scientists from Germany made it possible to move the drill vertically down for a very long time.
Not so big and the difference in diameter. Ultra-deep wells begin on the surface of the earth with a hole of a rather large diameter (at Oberpfalz - 71 cm), and then gradually narrow. At the bottom, the German well has a diameter of only about 16 cm.
The reason why the work had to be stopped is the same as in all other cases - equipment failure due to high temperatures.
1 Kola well - the deepest in the world
We owe a stupid legend to the “duck” launched in the Western press, where, with reference to the mythical “scientist of world renown” Azzakov, it was told about a “creature” that escaped from a mine, the temperature in which reached 1000 degrees, about the groans of millions of people who signed up for microphone down and so on.
At first glance, it is clear that the story is sewn with white thread (and it was published, by the way, on April Fool's Day): the temperature in the mine was no higher than 220 degrees, however, with it, as well as at 1000 degrees, no microphone can work ; creatures did not break out, and the named scientist does not exist.
The Kola well is the deepest in the world. Its depth reaches 12262 m, which significantly exceeds the depth of other mines. But not length! At least three wells can now be named - Qatar, Sakhalin-1 and one of the wells of the Chayvo field (Z-42) - which are longer, but not deeper.
Kolskaya gave scientists colossal material, which has not yet been fully processed and comprehended.
| Place | Name | Country | Depth |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kola | USSR | 12262 |
| 2 | KTB-Oberpfalz | Germany | 9900 |
| 3 | USA | 9583 | |
| 4 | baden unit | USA | 9159 |
| 5 | Germany | 9100 | |
| 6 | USA | 8686 | |
| 7 | Zisterdorf | Austria | 8553 |
| 8 | USSR (modern Azerbaijan) | 8324 | |
| 9 | Russia | 8250 | |
| 10 | Shevchenkovskaya | USSR (Ukraine) | 7520 |
One of the most ambitious projects of the Soviet era was the Kola super-deep well with a depth of 12,262 meters. This record remains unsurpassed to this day.
Year of issue: 2012
Country: Russia (TV Center)
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 00:25:21
Producer: Vladimir Batrakov
Description: The authors of the report will talk about the history and goals of this bold scientific experiment, talk with its direct participants, and explain the results in a popular way. Viewers will be able to see what condition the rig is in at the moment.
Drilling began in 1970, and the work was completely classified until the mid-1980s.
In 1992, drilling was stopped due to lack of funding - the well was never brought to the planned depth of 15 kilometers. But even at the existing depth, unique scientific data were obtained.
In addition, the legend about the sounds of terrible human screams allegedly recorded at great depths is connected with the Kola superdeep well, which caused the most incredible assumptions in the press...
Additional Information:
Dig to Beelzebub: In the 1970s, a team of Soviet explorers drilled on the Kola Peninsula, resulting in the deepest borehole in the world. A large-scale project was conceived with research goals, but unexpectedly led to almost hysteria around the world. According to rumors, Soviet scientists stumbled on the "road to hell", writes SPIEGEL ONLINE.
“A chilling picture: in the middle of the deserted expanses of the Kola Peninsula, 150 km north of Murmansk, an abandoned drilling rig rises. Barracks for employees, rooms with laboratories crowd around. the author continues.
On May 24, 1970, when the USSR and the USA raced to explore space, a project was launched in the Soviet Union on the border with Finland and Norway to drill an ultra-deep well at the site of the geological Baltic Shield. For several decades, the Kola superdeep well has "swallowed" millions, allowing scientists to make some rather serious scientific discoveries. However, the most high-profile find at a depth of more than 10 km turned the research project into an event with a deeply religious background, in which conjecture, truth and lies mixed together, creating sensational reports in all the world's media.
Shortly after the start of drilling, the Kola Superdeep became the Soviet exemplary project, a few years later the SG-3 broke the record of 9583 m, previously held by the Burt-Rogers well in Oklahoma. But this was not enough for the Soviet leadership - scientists had to reach a depth of 15 km.
"On the way to the bowels of the earth, scientists made unexpected discoveries: for example, they managed to predict earthquakes based on unusual sounds from a well. At a depth of 3 thousand meters, a substance was found in the layers of the lithosphere, almost identical to material from the surface of the Moon. After 6 thousand meters it was gold was discovered. However, scientists became increasingly concerned that the deeper they penetrated, the higher the temperatures became, which made it difficult to work," the article says. Unlike preliminary calculations, the temperature was not 100 degrees Celsius, but 180.
Around the same time, rumors spread that at a depth of 14 km the drill unexpectedly moved from side to side - a sign that it had landed in a giant cavity. Temperatures in the passage zone went off scale over a thousand degrees, and after a heat-resistant microphone was lowered into the mine to record the sound of the movement of lithospheric plates, the drillers heard soul-chilling sounds. At first they mistook them for the sounds of malfunctioning machinery, but then, after the equipment was adjusted, their worst suspicions were confirmed. The sounds were reminiscent of the cries and groans of thousands of martyrs, the article says.
"Where exactly this legend originates from is still unknown," the author continues. For the first time in English, it was voiced in 1989 on the air of the American television company Trinity Broadcasting Network, which took the story from a Finnish newspaper report. The Kola super-deep well began to be called the "road to hell." The stories of the frightened drillers were published by Finnish and Swedish newspapers - they claimed that "the Russians let the demon out of hell."
Drilling work was stopped - they were explained by insufficient funding. On instructions from above, the drilling rig was to be dumped - but there was not enough money for that either.
27.04.2011
Kola Superdeep Well(SG-3) - recognized as the deepest borehole in the world. The mine is located on the territory of the geological Baltic Shield in the Murmansk region, 10 km west of the city of Zapolyarny. Its total depth is 12,262 meters.
Its main difference from other ultra-deep wells that were drilled for gas, oil or geological exploration, the Kola super-deep was built exclusively for scientific research of the lithosphere in the place where the Mohorovichich boundary comes closest to the Earth's surface.
SG-3 record well
The first stage of drilling of the SG-3 well, the Kola super-deep well, was completed. It was launched in May 1970 and by the beginning of 1975 had sunk 7263 meters into the bowels.
A lot of it? Or is drilling to such a depth no longer surprising? In Ukraine, a well "Shevchenkovskaya-1" was drilled with a depth of more than 7,500 meters.
Ten wells in different places of the Soviet Union exceeded 6 thousand meters. The deepest well in the world was drilled in the USA - 9583 meters. In such an environment, the Kola Superdeep seems ordinary, one of many superdeep.
- Firstly, because this well is so far the deepest in the world of those drilled in the crystalline rocks of the Precambrian.
- Secondly, the Kola superdeep well is a new word in drilling technology. For the first time in world practice, a significant part of the well was drilled "open hole", that is, without casing.
Every meter of the well along its entire length was carefully studied, each column of the extracted rock was examined.
The thickness of the earth's crust is not the same. Under the ocean, in some places it thins out to 5 kilometers.
On the continents in areas of ancient folding it is 20-30, and under mountain ranges up to 75 kilometers. The earth's crust is called the skin of the planet.
Sometimes, in order to more figuratively show the deep structure of the Earth, a comparison is made with an egg. In this case, the bark plays the role of the shell.
Despite such a seemingly insignificant thickness, the "shell" of the Earth has so far remained inaccessible to direct research.
The main information about it was obtained indirectly - by geophysical methods. For example, it has been established from reflected seismic waves that the earth's crust has a layered structure.
The continental crust consists of sedimentary, granite and basalt layers; there is no granite layer in the oceanic crust.
Below the earth's crust, seismic observations have identified the mantle (if we continue the comparison with the egg - protein), and in the center of the Earth, the core - the yolk.
Gravimetric, magnetometric, nuclear, geothermal methods are also used to study the earth's depths. They allow you to determine the density of rocks at great depths, establish gravity anomalies, the characteristics of the magnetic field, temperature and dozens of other parameters.
Yet many basic questions of geology remain unanswered. Only direct penetration into the bowels will finally help to remove these question marks of geology.
Kola Superdeep
The Kola Superdeep is laid on the Baltic Crystalline Shield. This is the oldest formation of the earth's crust, which in the Scandinavian and Kola Peninsulas, Karelia, the Baltic Sea and in part of the Leningrad Region comes close to the earth's surface.
It can be assumed that the basalt layer here lies at a depth of slightly more than 7 kilometers. The shield is composed of ancient, highly altered rocks: Archean gneisses, crystalline schists, intrusive rocks up to 3.5 billion years old or more.
Scientists will have access to deep matter, will be able to study it in detail, conduct observations along the entire wellbore, build a real, and not supposed, continental-type section of the earth's crust, and determine the composition and physical state of matter.
About half of the way to the design 15-kilometer mark has been covered. And even this seemingly modest intermediate result turned out to be very interesting in terms of a number of important indicators.
For the first time in world science and practice, the thickness of not young sedimentary deposits, but ancient crystalline rocks, was discovered and studied in detail by a well, for the first time it was possible to collect a lot of new information about these rocks and the geological and physical conditions of their occurrence.
Rapidly creating and applying various technical innovations, continuously improving drilling technology and adapting it to specific geological conditions, Soviet scientists and drillers with domestic equipment and tools paved more than a seven-kilometer passage in the strongest earth rocks.
The path to the bowels of the Earth, in a certain sense, has become the road of technological progress in drilling: what has proven itself well in drilling wells in other areas is being tested and improved, new technical means and technology are being created and tested.
The Kola Superdeep field has become an experimental testing ground for testing new drilling equipment and technology. The role of the general designer and scientific supervisor of this unique testing ground was entrusted to our All-Union Order of the Red Banner of Labor Research Institute of Drilling Technology (VNIIBT) of the Minnefteprom.
Well to hell
The drilling of the Kola super-deep well served as a source of rumors associated with the emergence of the legend of the "road to hell".
The primary source of information (1989) was the American television company Trinity Broadcasting Network, which, in turn, took the story from a Finnish newspaper report. Allegedly, while drilling a well, at a depth of 12 thousand meters, the microphones of scientists recorded screams and groans.
The Kola super-deep well immediately received the name - "the road to hell" - and each new kilometer drilled brought misfortune to the country. At a depth of 13,000 meters, the USSR collapsed, at a depth of 14,500 meters, scientists stumbled upon voids.
The researchers lowered the microphone into the shaft and heard strange terrifying sounds and even human screams. The sensors showed a temperature of 1100 °C. The scientists thought they had discovered hell.
In fact, acoustic well survey methods do not record the sound itself and not on a microphone, but the wave pattern of reflected elastic vibrations on seismic receivers.
The drilling stop depth was 12,262 meters and the temperature recorded at this depth was only 220 ° C, which does not correspond to the main “facts” of the legend.
Kola superdeep: the last fireworks
Sounds of the underground - the secrets of the deepest well (TC "Vesti")
Kola superdeep hellish deceit
There is a terrible story about how Soviet drillers drilled the earth so deep that they got to hell itself. They lowered a microphone into the well and recorded the cries of sinners. Recently, interest in such a supernatural achievement of science has flared up with renewed vigor - the recording itself has appeared. The sounds really resemble the rumble of the crowd, singing, some kind of squeaking is heard.
The story features a certain "Dmitry Azzakov", to whom everyone refers. But numerous attempts to find this man did not lead to anything. Our further investigation showed that the surname itself appeared in the press as early as 1989. We found it in the Finnish newspaper Ammenusastia (monthly for Christians in the Levasjoki area). It is possible that this is the original source. There, Dr. “Azzakov”, a Soviet geologist, stated the following: “As a communist, I do not believe in heaven and the Bible, but as a scientist, I am now forced to believe in hell. Needless to say, we were shocked to make such a discovery. But we know what we heard and what we saw. And we are absolutely sure that we drilled through the gates of hell.”
It followed from the newspaper that the drama allegedly erupted in the USSR, when geologists conducting surveys in Western Siberia reached a depth of 14.4 km. Suddenly, the drill bit began to rotate wildly, indicating that there was a void or a cave below. When the scientists lifted the drill, a fanged, clawed creature with huge evil eyes emerged from the well, screeching like a wild animal, and disappeared. Frightened, most of the workers and engineers rushed to run, and the rest had to pass an equally ordeal.
“We lowered a microphone into the well, designed to record the movement of lithospheric plates,” Azzakov said further. “But instead, we heard a loud human voice that sounded like pain. At first we thought the sound was coming from the drilling equipment, but when we carefully checked it, our worst suspicions were confirmed. The screams and screams did not come from one person. It was the cries and groans of millions of people. Luckily, we recorded the terrifying sounds on tape."
And by June 1990, they had drilled up to 12,260 meters here. Now the work has been stopped, but then geologists did not hear about any hell.
In the end, it turned out that both stories were launched by the Norwegian Age Rendalin, who liked to call himself "special adviser to the Minister of Justice of Norway." When they became interested in him with might and main, it turned out that this was just a school teacher with an overdeveloped imagination.
He admitted that he invented everything to check how seriously the Christian press checks their publications. The audio recording, of course, was made by someone else in our days in order to somehow stir up interest in a long-standing fake.
In 1970, just in time for Lenin's 100th birthday, Soviet scientists launched one of the most ambitious projects of our time. On the Kola Peninsula, ten kilometers from the village of Zapolyarny, drilling of a well began, which as a result turned out to be the deepest in the world and entered the Guinness Book of Records.
The grandiose scientific project has been going on for more than twenty years. He brought a lot of interesting discoveries, went down in the history of science, and in the end was overgrown with so many legends, rumors and gossip that would be enough for more than one horror movie.
USSR. Kola Peninsula. October 1, 1980. Leading well drillers reaching a record depth of 10,500 meters
entrance to hell
During its heyday, the drilling rig on the Kola Peninsula was a cyclopean structure 20-story high. Up to three thousand people worked here per shift. The team was led by leading geologists of the country. The drilling rig was built in the tundra ten kilometers from the village of Zapolyarny, and in the polar night it shone with lights like a spaceship.
When all this splendor suddenly closed and the lights went out, rumors immediately spread. By all measures, the drilling was remarkably successful. No one in the world has yet managed to reach such a depth - Soviet geologists lowered the drill more than 12 kilometers.
The sudden end of a successful project looked as ridiculous as the fact that the Americans closed the program of flights to the moon. Aliens were blamed for the collapse of the lunar project. In the problems of the Kola Superdeep - devils and demons.
A popular legend says that from great depths, the drill was repeatedly taken out melted. There were no physical reasons for this - the temperature underground did not exceed 200 degrees Celsius, and the drill was designed for a thousand degrees. Then the audio sensors allegedly began to pick up some moans, screams and sighs. Dispatchers who monitored the instrument readings complained of feelings of panic fear and anxiety.
According to legend, it turned out that geologists had drilled to hell. The groans of sinners, extremely high temperatures, the atmosphere of horror at the drilling rig - all this explained why all work on the Kola Superdeep was suddenly curtailed.
Many were skeptical about these rumors. However, in 1995, after the work was stopped, a powerful explosion occurred at the drilling rig. Nobody understood what could explode there, even the head of the entire project, a prominent geologist David Guberman.
Today, excursions are led to an abandoned drilling rig and they tell tourists a fascinating story about how scientists drilled a hole into the underworld of the dead. As moaning ghosts roam the installation, and in the evening demons crawl out to the surface and strive to sneak into the abyss of a gaping extreme seeker.
underground moon
In fact, the whole story with the “well to hell” was invented by Finnish journalists by April 1st. Their comic article was reprinted by American newspapers, and the duck flew to the masses. Long-term drilling of the Kola superdeep proceeded without any mysticism. But what happened there in reality was more interesting than any legends.
To begin with, ultra-deep drilling by definition was doomed to numerous accidents. Under the yoke of gigantic pressure (up to 1000 atmospheres) and high temperatures, the drills could not withstand, the well was clogged, the pipes that strengthened the vent were broken. Countless times the narrow well was bent so that new branches had to be drilled.
The worst accident occurred shortly after the main triumph of geologists. In 1982, they were able to overcome the mark of 12 kilometers. These results were solemnly announced in Moscow at the International Geological Congress. Geologists from all over the world were brought to the Kola Peninsula, they were shown a drilling rig and rock samples mined at a fantastic depth that mankind had never reached before.
After the celebration, drilling continued. However, the break in work proved fatal. In 1984, the most terrible accident occurred at the drilling rig. As many as five kilometers of pipes came off and hammered the well. It was impossible to continue drilling. The results of five years of work were lost overnight.
I had to resume drilling from the 7-kilometer mark. Only in 1990, geologists again managed to cross over 12 kilometers. 12,262 meters - this is the final depth of the Kola well.
But in parallel with the terrible accidents, incredible discoveries also followed. Deep drilling is an analogue of a time machine. On the Kola Peninsula, the oldest rocks, whose age exceeds 3 billion years, come to the surface. Climbing deeper and deeper, scientists have gained a clear idea of what happened on our planet during its youth.
First of all, it turned out that the traditional scheme of the geological section, compiled by scientists, does not correspond to reality. “Up to 4 kilometers, everything went according to theory, and then the doomsday began,” Huberman later said.
According to calculations, having drilled a layer of granite, it was supposed to get to even harder, basalt rocks. But there was no basalt. After the granite came loose layered rocks, which constantly crumbled and made it difficult to move inland.
But among the rocks 2.8 billion years old, fossilized microorganisms were found. This made it possible to clarify the time of the origin of life on Earth. Huge deposits of methane have been found at even greater depths. This clarified the question of the origin of hydrocarbons - oil and gas.
And at a depth of more than 9 kilometers, scientists discovered a gold-bearing olivine layer, so vividly described by Alexei Tolstoy in the Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin.
But the most fantastic discovery occurred in the late 1970s, when the Soviet lunar station brought back samples of lunar soil. Geologists were amazed to see that its composition completely coincides with the composition of the rocks they mined at a depth of 3 kilometers. How was it possible?
The fact is that one of the hypotheses of the origin of the Moon suggests that several billion years ago the Earth collided with some kind of celestial body. As a result of the collision, a piece broke off from our planet and turned into a satellite. It is possible that this piece came off in the area of the current Kola Peninsula.
The final
So why did they close the Kola Superdeep?
Firstly, the main tasks of the scientific expedition were completed. Unique equipment for drilling at great depths was created, tested under extreme conditions and noticeably improved. The collected rock samples were studied and described in detail. The Kola well helped to better understand the structure of the earth's crust and the history of our planet.
Secondly, time itself was not conducive to such ambitious projects. In 1992, the scientific expedition was closed funding. Employees quit and went home. But even today, the grandiose building of the drilling rig and the mysterious well impress with their scale.
Sometimes it seems that the Kola Superdeep has not yet exhausted the entire supply of its miracles. The head of the famous project was also sure of this. “We have the deepest hole in the world - this is how you should use it!” exclaimed David Huberman.
Kola superdeep well SG-3. Myths and reality.
From myself: remember the nonsense that Soviet scientists found a void at a depth of 13 km, lowered a microphone there and allegedly heard screams and screams there? In fact, this is a fiction of Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian newspapers. Judge for yourself - scientists wanted to get to the bottom of the mantle, but they never did, and even more so, there was no emptiness. Then - a microphone at a depth of 12-13 km and at a high temperature ... Yes, there are simply no such microphones that are resistant to such temperatures ... And all sorts of recordings of "voices from hell", "from the hellish Kola well" - not more than a cheap fake.
I want to tell you about the famous super-deep well Kolskaya. It is unlikely that many people knew (like me, until my father told me) that the Kola SG-3 well is the deepest drilled well in the world (until 2008). While still studying at the institute, the teachers carried legends about the Kolskaya well from corner to corner, although many of our teachers had nothing to do with drilling, etc. at all.
General review:
The Kola Superdeep Well (SG-3) is the deepest borehole in the world. It is located in the Murmansk region, 10 kilometers west of the city of Zapolyarny, on the territory of the geological Baltic Shield. Its depth is 12,262 meters. Unlike other ultra-deep wells that were made for oil production or exploration, SG-3 was drilled exclusively for the study of the lithosphere in the place where the Mohorovichic boundary comes close to the Earth's surface.
It was also the deepest well until 2008 when it was bypassed by the 12,290 meter Maersk Oil BD-04A oil well drilled at an acute angle to the ground (located in the Al Shaheen Oil Basin, Qatar), after which in January 2011 this the well was also bypassed by the oil well of the Odoptu-Sea field of the Sakhalin-1 project, also drilled at an acute angle to the surface of the earth, with a length of 12,345 meters.
Well from the point of view of science:
When, at the end of the last century, the drilling of the famous Kola super-deep well was started, the media wrote that in the very thickness of the earth, the microphones of scientists recorded screams and groans ... Is the Hell really there? Like it or not, but what the researchers saw radically changed the traditional ideas about the structure of the upper layer of the Earth.
For a long time, people have tried to understand how the bowels of our planet are arranged. However, for a long time it was not possible to drill the earth's firmament more than a few hundred meters - there was no necessary equipment. Therefore, all ideas about the internal structure of the Earth are based mainly on theoretical calculations, which have not yet been confirmed by experimental data.
According to the generally accepted point of view, the Earth consists of three large layers: the core, the mantle and the earth's crust. In the center is the core, divided into an inner solid region (with a radius of about 1300 km) and a liquid outer core with a radius of about 2200 km, between which a transition zone is sometimes distinguished. It is believed that this region of the planet is composed of an iron-nickel alloy.
Next is the mantle - a layer consisting of silicates of magnesium, iron, calcium and other metals. It extends from depths of 5-70 kilometers below the boundary with the earth's crust, to the boundary with the core at a depth of 2900 km. It is believed that the mantle is quite hot and in some of its layers the substance is in a molten state.
The upper layers of the mantle are in contact with the earth's crust - the very layer on which we, in fact, live. The thickness of this outer shell varies from several kilometers (in the oceanic regions) to several tens of kilometers (in the mountainous regions of the continents). The sphere of the earth's crust is very small, accounting for only about 0.5% of the total mass of the planet. The main composition of the crust is oxides of silicon, aluminum, iron and alkali metals.
It is believed that in the composition of the continental crust, which contains the upper (granite) and lower (basalt) layers under the sedimentary layer, there are the most ancient rocks of the Earth, whose age is estimated at more than 3 billion years. The oceanic crust is younger and thinner - under the accumulation of sediments (their age does not exceed 100-150 million years) there is only one layer, close in composition to basalt.
It turns out that for the entire time of their existence, people have not really been able to explore even the earth's crust, and for many years none of the scientists even dared to dream of "feeling" the mantle or the core. However, in the middle of the 20th century, the equipment necessary for such research was finally developed, and the dream began to turn into reality.
Projects for traveling deep into the Earth appeared in the early 60s of the last century in several countries at once. They tried to drill wells in those places where the earth's crust should have been thinner, since the purpose of such drilling was to reach the mantle, which, in fact, they were going to explore in detail.
For example, the Americans drilled in the area of the island of Maui, Hawaii, where, according to seismic studies, ancient rocks go under the ocean floor and the mantle is located at a depth of about five kilometers (under a four-kilometer water column). Nevertheless, not a single ocean drilling rig deeper than 3 kilometers could break through.
In general, almost all ultra-deep well projects mysteriously ended at a depth of three kilometers. It was at this moment that something strange began to happen to the Boers: either they fell into unexpected areas with high temperatures, or they seemed to be bitten off by some mysterious underground demon. So in most cases it was not even possible to study the composition of the deep layers of the earth's crust, not to mention the mantle, the study of which, in fact, was the real goal of such studies.
Start drilling:
Kolskaya drilling. Residential town and auxiliary workshops
And so, in 1970, drilling of the famous Kola well began on the Kola Peninsula. The drilling point was chosen in this place of the peninsula not by chance - the peninsula is located on the so-called Baltic Shield, which is composed of the most ancient rocks known to mankind. Work on this object was carried out from 1970 to 1992, during which time it was possible to "pierce" the earth's crust by 12,262 meters.
Interestingly, when the International Geological Congress was held in Moscow in 1984, at which the first results of the well research were presented, many scientists jokingly suggested that it be immediately buried, since it destroys all ideas about the structure of the earth's crust. Indeed, oddities began even at the first stages of penetration. So, for example, theorists had promised even before drilling began that the temperature of the Baltic Shield would remain relatively low to a depth of at least 15 kilometers. Accordingly, it will be possible to dig a well up to almost 20 kilometers, just up to the mantle.
However, already at a depth of five kilometers, the ambient temperature exceeded 700C, at seven - over 1200C, and at a depth of 12 kilometers, the sensors recorded as much as 2200C - 1000C higher than predicted. Scientists have not yet found an explanation for this phenomenon.
The well also did not confirm the concept of the structure of the earth's crust in the likeness of a layer cake - first sedimentary rocks, then granites, and basalts at the bottom. However, according to the drillers, the granites turned out to be 3 kilometers lower than the scientists expected. And the basalt layer was completely absent - the last 6 kilometers made their way exclusively through granite. Scientists believe that the Kola drillers, without realizing it, made a discovery that is extremely important for all mankind.
The Kola superdeep well gave the researchers another surprise: life on planet Earth arose, it turns out, 1.5 billion years earlier than expected. At depths where it was believed that there was no organic matter, 14 types of fossilized microorganisms were found, and in fact the age of these deep layers exceeded 2.8 billion years. But, most surprisingly, at even greater depths, where there are no sedimentary rocks, natural gas methane was found in huge concentrations. This completely and utterly destroyed the theory of the biological origin of hydrocarbons such as oil and gas.
Not only scientific sensations were also associated with the Kola well, but also mysterious legends, most of which turned out to be fiction of journalists during verification. According to one of them (born by the authors of the reports of a Finnish newspaper), in the very thickness of the earth, at a depth of over 12 thousand meters, the microphones of scientists recorded cries and groans.
Myths or reality:
The journalists, without even thinking about the fact that it is simply not possible to stick a microphone to such a depth (what sound recording device can operate at temperatures above two hundred degrees?), wrote that the drillers heard a "voice from the underworld." After these publications, the Kola super-deep well began to be called the "road to hell", arguing that each new kilometer drilled brought misfortune to the country.
It was said that when the drillers were drilling the thirteenth thousand meters, the USSR collapsed. Well, when the well was drilled to a depth of 14.5 km (which actually did not happen), they suddenly stumbled upon unusual voids. Intrigued by this unexpected discovery, the drillers lowered a microphone capable of operating at extremely high temperatures and other sensors into it. The temperature inside allegedly reached 1,100 ° C - there was a heat of fiery chambers, in which, allegedly, human screams could be heard.
This legend still roams the vast expanses of the Internet, having survived the very culprit of these gossip - the Kola well. Work on it was stopped back in 1992 due to lack of funding. Until 2008, it was in a mothballed state. And two years ago, the final decision was made to abandon the continuation of research and dismantle the entire research complex, and "bury" the well. The final liquidation of the well took place this summer.
So, as you can see, this time the scientists were not able to get to the mantle and explore it. However, this does not mean that the Kola well did not give anything to science - on the contrary, it turned all their ideas about the structure of the earth's crust upside down. It is possible that the researchers of the current Maersk Oil oil well (12,290 meters deep - which is 28 meters deeper than the Kola), which is located in the Al-Shahin oil basin, in Qatar, will be able to climb even deeper.
