The depth of the deepest well. Kola Superdeep

"Dr. Huberman, what the hell did you dig down there?" - a remark from the audience interrupted the report of the Russian scientist at the UNESCO meeting in Australia. A couple of weeks earlier, in April 1995, a wave of reports swept the world about a mysterious accident at the Kola superdeep well.

Allegedly, on the approach to the 13th kilometer, the instruments recorded a strange noise coming from the bowels of the planet - the yellow newspapers unanimously assured that only the cries of sinners from the underworld could sound like this. A few seconds after the appearance of a terrible sound, an explosion thundered ...

Space under your feet

In the late 70s - early 80s, get a job at the Kola Superdeep, as the inhabitants of the village of Zapolyarny call the well familiarly Murmansk region, it was more difficult than getting into the cosmonaut corps. From hundreds of applicants, one or two were selected. Together with the order for employment, the lucky ones received a separate apartment and a salary equal to double or triple the salary of Moscow professors. 16 research laboratories, each - the size of an average plant. Only the Germans dug the earth with such persistence, but, as the Guinness Book of Records testifies, the deepest German well is almost half as long as ours.

Distant galaxies have been studied by mankind much better than what is under the earth's crust a few kilometers from us. Kola Superdeep - a kind of telescope in the mysterious inner world planets.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, it has been believed that the Earth consists of a crust, a mantle, and a core. At the same time, no one really could tell where one layer ends and the next one begins. Scientists did not even know what, in fact, these layers consist of. Some 40 years ago, they were sure that the layer of granites starts at a depth of 50 meters and continues up to 3 kilometers, and then basalts come. It was expected to meet the mantle at a depth of 15–18 kilometers. In reality, everything turned out to be completely different. And although in school textbooks still write that the Earth consists of three layers, scientists from the Kola Superdeep proved that this is not so.

Baltic shield

Projects for traveling deep into the Earth appeared in the early 60s in several countries at once. They tried to drill wells in those places where the crust should have been thinner - the goal was to reach the mantle. For example, the Americans were drilling near the island of Maui, in Hawaii, where, according to seismic research, ancient rocks go under ocean floor and the mantle is about 5 kilometers deep under a four-kilometer water column. Alas, not a single ocean drilling rig has penetrated deeper than 3 kilometers. 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 super-hot areas, or they seemed to be bitten off by some unprecedented monster. Deeper than 3 kilometers, only 5 wells broke through, 4 of them were Soviet. And only the Kola Superdeep was destined to overcome the mark of 7 kilometers.

Initial domestic projects also involved underwater drilling - in the Caspian Sea or on Baikal. But in 1963, drilling scientist Nikolai Timofeev convinced State Committee on science and technology of the USSR that it is necessary to create a well on the continent. Although drilling would take incomparably longer, he believed, the well would be much more valuable with scientific point vision, because it is in the thickness of the continental plates in prehistoric times the most significant movements of terrestrial rocks took place. The drilling point was chosen Kola Peninsula not by chance. The peninsula is located on the so-called Baltic Shield, which is composed of the most ancient known to mankind breeds.

A multi-kilometer section of the Baltic Shield layers is a clear history of the planet over the past 3 billion years.

Conqueror of the Deep

Appearance The Kola drilling rig is capable of disappointing the layman. The well does not look like a mine that our imagination draws for us. There are no descents underground, only a drill with a diameter of a little more than 20 centimeters goes into the thickness. An imaginary section of the Kola super deep well looks like a thin needle that pierced the earth's thickness. A drill with numerous sensors, located at the end of the needle, is raised and lowered over several days. Faster is impossible: the strongest composite cable can break under its own weight.

What happens in the depths is not known for certain. Temperature environment, noise and other parameters are transmitted upward with a minute delay. However, drillers say that even such contact with the dungeon can be seriously frightening. The sounds coming from below are indeed like screams and howls. To this we can add a long list of accidents that haunted the Kola superdeep when it reached a depth of 10 kilometers. Twice the drill was taken out melted, although the temperatures from which it can melt are comparable to the temperature of the surface of the Sun. Once the cable seemed to be pulled from below - and cut off. Subsequently, when drilling in the same place, no remnants of the cable were found. What caused these and many other accidents is still a mystery. However, they were not at all the reason for stopping the drilling of the bowels of the Baltic Shield.

12,000 meters of discovery and some hell

“We have the deepest hole in the world - this is how you should use it!” - bitterly exclaims the permanent director of the research and production center "Kola Superdeep" David Guberman. In the first 30 years of the existence of the Kola Superdeep, Soviet and then Russian scientists broke through to a depth of 12,262 meters. But since 1995, drilling has been stopped: there was no one to finance the project. What stands out within scientific programs UNESCO, is only enough to maintain the drilling station in working condition and study previously extracted rock samples.

Huberman recalls with regret how much scientific discoveries took place at the Kola Superdeep. Literally every meter was a revelation. The borehole showed that almost all of our previous knowledge of the structure earth's crust are wrong. It turned out that the Earth is not at all like a layer cake. “Up to 4 kilometers, everything went according to theory, and then the doomsday began,” says Guberman. Theorists have promised that the temperature of the Baltic Shield will 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. But already at 5 kilometers, the ambient temperature exceeded 700C, at seven - over 1200C, and at a depth of 12 it was roasting more than 2200C - 1000C higher than predicted. The Kola drillers questioned the theory of the layered structure of the earth's crust - at least in the range up to 12,262 meters. We were taught at school: there are young rocks, granites, basalts, a mantle and a core. But the granites turned out to be 3 kilometers lower than expected. Next were the basalts. They weren't found at all. All drilling took place in the granite layer. This is an extremely important discovery, because all our ideas about the origin and distribution of minerals are connected with the theory of the layered structure of the Earth.

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 - age deep layers exceeded 2.8 billion years. At even greater depths, where there are no longer sedimentary rocks, methane appeared in huge concentrations. This completely and utterly destroyed the theory biological origin hydrocarbons such as oil and gas

There were also almost fantastic sensations. When in the late 70s the Soviet automatic space station brought to Earth 124 grams lunar soil, researchers of the Kola scientific center found that it is like two drops of water similar to samples from a depth of 3 kilometers. And a hypothesis arose: the moon broke away from the Kola Peninsula. Now they are looking for exactly where.

In the history of the Kola Superdeep, it was not without mysticism. Officially, as already mentioned, the well stopped due to lack of funds. Coincidence or not - but it was in that 1995 that in the depths of the mine there was a powerful explosion undetermined nature. The journalists of a Finnish newspaper broke through to the inhabitants of Zapolyarny - and the world was shocked by the story of a demon flying out of the bowels of the planet.

"When me about this mysterious history began to ask questions at UNESCO, I did not know what to answer. On the one hand, it's bullshit. On the other hand, I, as an honest scientist, could not say that I know what exactly happened here. A very strange noise was recorded, then there was an explosion ... A few days later, nothing of the kind was found at the same depth, ”recalls Academician David Huberman.

Quite unexpectedly for everyone, the predictions of Alexei Tolstoy from the novel "The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin" were confirmed. At a depth of over 9.5 kilometers, they discovered a real storehouse of all kinds of minerals, in particular gold. A real olivine belt, brilliantly predicted by the writer. Gold in it is 78 grams per ton. By the way, industrial production is possible at a concentration of 34 grams per ton. Perhaps in the near future humanity will be able to take advantage of this wealth.

Space under your feet

In the late 70s and early 80s, getting a job at the Kola Superdeep, as the inhabitants of the village of Zapolyarny in the Murmansk region call the well familiarly, was more difficult than getting into the cosmonaut corps. From hundreds of applicants, one or two were selected. Together with the order for employment, the lucky ones received a separate apartment and a salary equal to double or triple the salary of Moscow professors. There were 16 research laboratories working at the well at the same time, each the size of an average plant. Only the Germans dug the earth with such persistence, but, as the Guinness Book of Records testifies, the deepest German well is almost half as long as ours.

Distant galaxies have been studied by mankind much better than what is under the earth's crust a few kilometers from us. The Kola Superdeep is a kind of telescope into the mysterious inner world of the planet.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, it has been believed that the Earth consists of a crust, a mantle, and a core. At the same time, no one really could tell where one layer ends and the next one begins. Scientists did not even know what, in fact, these layers consist of. Some 40 years ago, they were sure that the layer of granites starts at a depth of 50 meters and continues up to 3 kilometers, and then basalts come. It was expected to meet the mantle at a depth of 15–18 kilometers. In reality, everything turned out to be completely different. And although school textbooks still write that the Earth consists of three layers, scientists from the Kola Superdeep proved that this is not so.

Baltic Shield

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 super-hot areas, or they seemed to be bitten off by some unprecedented monster. Deeper than 3 kilometers, only 5 wells broke through, 4 of them were Soviet. And only the Kola Superdeep was destined to overcome the mark of 7 kilometers.

Initial domestic projects also involved underwater drilling - in the Caspian Sea or on Baikal. But in 1963, drilling scientist Nikolai Timofeev convinced the State Committee for Science and Technology of the USSR that a well should be created on the continent. Although drilling would take incomparably longer, he believed, the well would be much more valuable from a scientific point of view, because it was in the thickness of the continental plates in prehistoric times that the most significant movements of terrestrial rocks took place. The drilling point was chosen on the Kola 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.

A multi-kilometer section of the Baltic Shield layers is a clear history of the planet over the past 3 billion years.

Conqueror of the Deep

The appearance of the Kola drilling rig is capable of disappointing the layman. The well does not look like a mine that our imagination draws for us. There are no descents underground, only a drill with a diameter of a little more than 20 centimeters goes into the thickness. An imaginary section of the Kola super-deep well looks like a thin needle that has pierced the earth's thickness. A drill with numerous sensors, located at the end of the needle, is raised and lowered over several days. Faster is impossible: the strongest composite cable can break under its own weight.

What happens in the depths is not known for certain. Ambient temperature, noise and other parameters are transmitted upward with a minute delay. However, drillers say that even such contact with the dungeon can be seriously frightening. The sounds coming from below are indeed like screams and howls. To this we can add a long list of accidents that haunted the Kola superdeep when it reached a depth of 10 kilometers. Twice the drill was taken out melted, although the temperatures from which it can melt are comparable to the temperature of the surface of the Sun. Once the cable seemed to be pulled from below - and cut off. Subsequently, when drilling in the same place, no remnants of the cable were found. What caused these and many other accidents is still a mystery. However, they were not at all the reason for stopping the drilling of the bowels of the Baltic Shield.

12,226 meters of discoveries and some hell

“We have the deepest hole in the world - this is how you should use it!” - bitterly exclaims the permanent director of the research and production center "Kola Superdeep" David Guberman. In the first 30 years of the existence of the Kola Superdeep, Soviet and then Russian scientists broke through to a depth of 12,226 meters. But since 1995, drilling has been stopped: there was no one to finance the project. What is allocated within the framework of UNESCO's scientific programs is only enough to maintain the drilling station in working condition and study previously extracted rock samples.

Huberman recalls with regret how many scientific discoveries took place at the Kola Superdeep. Literally every meter was a revelation. The well showed that almost all of our previous knowledge about the structure of the earth's crust is incorrect. It turned out that the Earth is not at all like a layer cake. “Up to 4 kilometers, everything went according to theory, and then the doomsday began,” says Guberman. Theorists have promised that the temperature of the Baltic Shield will 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. But already at 5 kilometers, the ambient temperature exceeded 70 ºC, at seven - over 120 ºC, and at a depth of 12 it was roasting more than 220 ºC - 100 ºC higher than predicted. The Kola drillers questioned the theory of the layered structure of the earth's crust - at least in the range up to 12,262 meters.

We were taught at school: there are young rocks, granites, basalts, a mantle and a core. But the granites turned out to be 3 kilometers lower than expected. Next were the basalts. They weren't found at all. All drilling took place in the granite layer. This is an extremely important discovery, because all our ideas about the origin and distribution of minerals are connected with the theory of the layered structure of the Earth.

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 - the age of the deep layers exceeded 2.8 billion years. At even greater depths, where there are no longer sedimentary rocks, methane appeared in huge concentrations. This completely and completely destroyed the theory of the biological origin of hydrocarbons such as oil and gas.

Demons

In the history of the Kola Superdeep, it was not without mysticism. Officially, as already mentioned, the well stopped due to lack of funds. Coincidence or not - but it was in that 1995 that a powerful explosion of an unknown nature was heard in the depths of the mine. The journalists of a Finnish newspaper broke through to the inhabitants of Zapolyarny - and the world was shocked by the story of a demon flying out of the bowels of the planet.

“When I was asked about this mysterious story at UNESCO, I did not know what to answer. On the one hand, it's bullshit. On the other hand, I, as an honest scientist, could not say that I know what exactly happened here. A very strange noise was recorded, then there was an explosion ... A few days later, nothing of the kind was found at the same depth, ”recalls Academician David Huberman.

At a depth of 410-660 kilometers below the surface of the Earth, the ocean archean period. Such discoveries would not have been possible without the ultra-deep drilling methods developed and used in the Soviet Union. One of the artifacts of those times is the Kola super-deep well (SG-3), which, even 24 years after the cessation of drilling, remains the deepest in the world. Why it was drilled and what discoveries it helped to make, says Lenta.ru.

Pioneers ultra-deep drilling the Americans came forward. True, in the vastness of the ocean: in a pilot project, they involved the ship Glomar Challenger, designed just for this purpose. In the meantime, the corresponding theoretical base was being actively developed in the Soviet Union.

In May 1970, in the north of the Murmansk region, 10 kilometers from the city of Zapolyarny, drilling began on the Kola superdeep well. As expected, this was timed to coincide with the centenary of the birth of Lenin. Unlike other ultra-deep wells, SG-3 was drilled exclusively for scientific purposes and even organized a special exploration expedition.

The drilling site was unique: it is on the Baltic Shield in the Kola Peninsula region that ancient rocks come to the surface. Many of them are three billion years old (our planet itself is 4.5 billion years old). In addition, here the Pechenga-Imandra-Varzug rift trough is a cup-like structure pressed into ancient rocks, the origin of which is explained by a deep fault.

It took scientists four years to drill a well to a depth of 7263 meters. So far, nothing unusual has been done: the same installation was used as in the extraction of oil and gas. Then the well stood idle whole year: The rig has been modified for turbine drilling. After the upgrade, it was possible to drill about 60 meters per month.

A depth of seven kilometers brought surprises: the alternation of hard and not very dense rocks. Accidents have become more frequent, and many caverns have appeared in the wellbore. Drilling continued until 1983, when the depth of SG-3 reached 12 kilometers. After that, the scientists gathered a large conference and talked about their successes.

However, due to careless handling of the drill, a five-kilometer section remained in the mine. For several months they tried to get it, but did not succeed. It was decided to start drilling again from a depth of seven kilometers. Due to the complexity of the operation, not only the main shaft was drilled, but also four additional ones. It took six years to restore the lost meters: in 1990, the well reached a depth of 12,262 meters, becoming the deepest in the world.

Two years later, drilling was stopped, subsequently the well was mothballed, but in fact it was abandoned.

Nevertheless, many discoveries were made at the Kola superdeep well. Engineers have created a whole system of ultra-deep drilling. The difficulty lies not only in depth, but also in high temperatures(up to 200 degrees Celsius) due to the intensity of the work of the drills.

Scientists not only moved deep into the Earth, but also raised rock samples and cores for analysis. By the way, it was they who studied the lunar soil and found out that in composition it almost completely corresponds to the rocks extracted from the Kola well from a depth of about three kilometers.

At a depth of more than nine kilometers, they found deposits of minerals, including gold: in the olivine layer it is as much as 78 grams per ton. And this is not so little - gold mining is considered possible at 34 grams per ton. A pleasant surprise for scientists, as well as for the nearby plant, was the discovery of a new ore horizon of copper-nickel ores.

Among other things, the researchers learned that granites do not pass into a super-strong basalt layer: in fact, Archean gneisses, which are traditionally classified as fractured rocks, were located behind it. This made a kind of revolution in geological and geophysical science and completely changed the traditional ideas about the bowels of the Earth.

Another a pleasant surprise- discovery at a depth of 9-12 kilometers of highly porous fractured rocks saturated with highly mineralized waters. According to the assumption of scientists, it is they who are responsible for the formation of ores, but before it was believed that this occurs only at much shallower depths.

Among other things, it turned out that the temperature of the bowels is slightly higher than expected: at a depth of six kilometers, a temperature gradient of 20 degrees Celsius per kilometer was obtained instead of 16 expected. Radiogenic origin has been established heat flow, which is also inconsistent with previous hypotheses.

In the deep layers more than 2.8 billion years old, scientists have found 14 types of petrified microorganisms. This made it possible to shift the time of the origin of life on the planet by one and a half billion years ago. The researchers also found that there are no sedimentary rocks at the depths and there is methane, forever burying the theory of the biological origin of hydrocarbons.

Many scientific and production work associated with drilling underground wells. Total such objects only in Russia is hardly calculable. But legendary Kola Superdeep since the 1990s, it has remained unsurpassed, going into the thickness of the Earth for more than 12 kilometers! It was drilled not for economic gain, but purely scientific interest- learn what processes occur inside the planet.

Kola superdeep well. Drilling rig of the first stage (depth 7600 m), 1974

50 candidates per seat

The most amazing well in the world is located in the Murmansk region, 10 kilometers west of the city of Zapolyarny. Its depth is 12,262 meters, the diameter of the upper part is 92 centimeters, and the diameter of the lower part is 21.5 centimeters.

The well was laid in 1970 in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of V.I. Lenin. The choice of place was not accidental - it is here, on the territory of the Baltic Shield, that the most ancient rocks, whose age is three billion years old, come to the surface.

FROM late XIX century known theory that our planet consists of a crust, mantle and core. But where exactly one layer ends and the next begins, scientists could only guess. According to the most common version, granites go down to three kilometers, then basalts, and at a depth of 15-18 kilometers the mantle begins. All this had to be tested in practice.

Underground exploration in the 1960s was reminiscent of space race- the leading countries tried to get ahead of each other. The opinion was expressed that the richest deposits of minerals, including gold, are located at great depths.

The Americans were the first to drill super-deep wells. In the early 1960s, their scientists figured out that the Earth's crust is much thinner under the oceans. Therefore, the area near the island of Maui was chosen as the most promising place for work (one of the group Hawaiian Islands), where the earth's mantle is at a depth of about five kilometers (plus a 4-kilometer water column). But both attempts by researchers from the United States ended in failure.

The Soviet Union had to adequately respond. Our researchers proposed to create a well on the continent - despite the fact that it took longer to drill, the result promised to be successful.

The project became one of the largest in the USSR. 16 research laboratories worked at the well. Getting a job here was no less difficult than getting into the cosmonaut corps. Ordinary employees received a triple salary and an apartment in Moscow or Leningrad. Not surprisingly, there was no staff turnover at all, and at least 50 candidates applied for each position.

space sensation

Down to a depth of 7263 meters, the drilling was carried out using a conventional serial installation, which at that time was used in the extraction of oil or gas. This phase took four years. Then there was a one-year break for the construction of a new tower and the installation of a more powerful Uralmash-15000 installation, created in Sverdlovsk and called Severyanka. In her work, the turbine principle was used - when not the entire string rotates, but only the drill head.

With each meter passed, it became more difficult to drive. Previously, it was believed that the temperature of the rock, even at a depth of 15 kilometers, would not exceed 150 °C. But it turned out that at a depth of eight kilometers it reached 169 ° C, and at a depth of 12 kilometers it was 220 ° C at all!

The equipment quickly broke down. But the work continued without stopping. The task of being the first in the world to reach the 12-kilometer mark was politically important. It was solved in 1983, just in time for the beginning of the International Geological Congress in Moscow.

Congress delegates were shown soil samples taken from record depth 12 kilometers, a trip to the well was organized for them. Photos and articles about the Kola Superdeep were published in all the world's leading newspapers and magazines, and postage stamps were issued in several countries in her honor.

But the main thing is that it was specially prepared for the congress real sensation. It turned out that rock samples taken at a 3-kilometer depth of the Kola well are completely identical to the lunar soil (it was first brought to Earth by the Soviet automatic space station Luna-16 in 1970).

Scientists have long assumed that the Moon was once part of the Earth and broke away from it as a result. space disaster. Now it was possible to say that the breakaway part of our planet billions of years ago was in contact with the region of the present Kola Peninsula.

Ultra-deep well became a real triumph Soviet science. Researchers, designers, even ordinary workers were honored and awarded for almost a whole year.

Kola superdeep well, 2007

Gold in the Deep

At this time, work on the Kola Superdeep was suspended. They were resumed only in September 1984. And the first launch led to biggest accident. Employees seem to have forgotten what's inside underground passage there are constant changes. The well does not forgive stopping work - and forces you to start all over again.

As a result, the drill string broke, leaving five kilometers of pipes in the depth. They tried to get them, but after a few months it became clear that this would not be possible.

Drilling work began again from the 7-kilometer mark. The depth of 12 kilometers was reached for the second time only six years later. In 1990, the maximum was reached - 12,262 meters.

And then the work of the well was affected by both failures of a local scale and events taking place in the country. The possibilities of the available equipment were exhausted, state funding decreased sharply. After several serious accidents, drilling was stopped in 1992.

The scientific significance of the Kola Superdeep is difficult to overestimate. First of all, work on it confirmed the conjecture about the rich deposits of minerals at great depths. Of course, precious metals in pure form not found there. But at the mark of nine kilometers, layers were discovered with a gold content of 78 grams per ton (active industrial mining is carried out when this content is 34 grams per ton).

In addition, the analysis of ancient deep rocks made it possible to clarify the age of the Earth - it turned out that it is one and a half billion years older than it was commonly thought.

It was believed that at the super-depths there is no and cannot be organic life, but in soil samples raised to the surface, whose age was three billion years, 14 previously unknown species of fossilized microorganisms were discovered.

Shortly before closing, in 1989, the Kola Superdeep was again in the center of international attention. The director of the well, Academician David Huberman, suddenly received calls and letters from all over the world. Scientists, journalists, just inquisitive citizens were interested in the question: is it true that the super-deep well has become a "well to hell"?

It turned out that representatives of the Finnish press were talking to some employees of the Kola Superdeep. And they admitted: when the drill crossed the mark of 12 kilometers, strange noises began to be heard from the depths of the well. Instead of a drill head, the workers lowered a heat-resistant microphone - and with its help recorded sounds reminiscent of human screams. One of the employees put forward a version that this the screams of sinners in hell.

How true are these stories? It is technically difficult to place a microphone instead of a drill, but it is possible. True, work on its descent can take several weeks. And it would hardly have been possible to carry it out at a sensitive facility instead of drilling. But, on the other hand, many employees of the well actually heard strange sounds, which regularly came from the depths. And what it could be, no one knew for sure.

At the suggestion of Finnish journalists, the world press published a number of articles claiming that the Kola Superdeep is a "road to hell." Mystical significance was also attributed to the fact that the USSR collapsed when the drillers were sinking the "unfortunate" thirteenth thousand meters.

In 1995, when the station had already been mothballed, an incomprehensible explosion occurred in the depths of the mine - if only for the reason that there was nothing to explode there. Foreign newspapers reported that a demon flew out of the bowels of the Earth through a man-made passage to the surface (publications were full of headlines like "Satan escaped from hell").

The director of the well, David Guberman, honestly admitted in his interview: he does not believe in hell and demons, but an incomprehensible explosion really took place, as well as strange noises resembling voices. Moreover, a survey conducted after the explosion showed that all the equipment was in perfect order.

Kola superdeep well, 2012

The well itself (welded), August 2012

Museum for 100 million

For a long time, the well was considered mothballed, about 20 employees worked on it (in the 1980s, their number exceeded 500). In 2008, the facility was completely closed and part of the equipment was dismantled. The ground part of the well is a building the size of a 12-storey building, now it is abandoned and is gradually being destroyed. Sometimes tourists come here, attracted by legends about voices from hell.

According to employees of the Geological Institute of the Kola Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which previously managed the well, its restoration would cost 100 million rubles.

But oh scientific papers at depth, we are no longer talking: on the basis of this object it is only possible to open an institute or another enterprise to train specialists in offshore drilling. Or create a museum - after all Kola well continues to be the deepest in the world.

Anastasia BABANOVSKAYA, magazine "Secrets of the XX century" No. 5 2017

"Dr. Huberman, what the hell did you dig down there?"- a remark from the audience interrupted the report of the Russian scientist at the UNESCO meeting in Australia.

A couple of weeks earlier, in April 1995, a wave of reports swept the world about a mysterious accident at the Kola superdeep well. Allegedly, on the approach to the 13th kilometer, the instruments recorded a strange noise coming from the bowels of the planet - the yellow newspapers unanimously assured that only the cries of sinners from the underworld could sound like this. A few seconds after the appearance of a terrible sound, an explosion thundered ...

Space under your feet

In the late 70s and early 80s, getting a job at the Kola Superdeep, as the residents of the city of Zapolyarny in the Murmansk region call the well, was more difficult than getting into the cosmonaut corps. From hundreds of applicants, one or two were selected. Together with the order for employment, the lucky ones received a separate apartment and a salary equal to double or triple the salary of a Moscow professor. There were 16 research laboratories working at the well at the same time, each the size of an average plant. Only the Germans dug the earth with such persistence, but, as the Guinness Book of Records testifies, the deepest German well is almost half as long as ours.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, it has been believed that the Earth consists of a crust, a mantle, and a core. At the same time, no one really could tell where one layer ends and the next one begins. Scientists did not even know what, in fact, these layers consist of. Some 40 years ago, they were sure that the layer of granites starts at a depth of 50 meters and continues up to 3 kilometers, and then basalts come. It was expected to meet the mantle at a depth of 15-18 kilometers. In reality, everything turned out to be completely different. And although school textbooks still write that the Earth consists of three layers, scientists from the Kola Superdeep proved that this is not so.

Baltic shield

Alas, not a single ocean drilling rig has penetrated deeper than 3 kilometers. In general, almost all ultra-deep well projects mysteriously ended at a depth of 3 km. It was at this moment that something strange began to happen to the Boers: either they fell into unexpected super-hot areas, or they seemed to be bitten off by some unprecedented monster. Deeper than 3 kilometers, only 5 wells broke through, 4 of them were Soviet. And only the Kola Superdeep was destined to overcome the mark of 7 kilometers.

The drilling point was chosen on the Kola 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. A multi-kilometer section of the Baltic Shield layers is a clear history of the planet over the past 3 billion years.

Conqueror of the Deep

Twice the drill was taken out melted, although the temperatures from which it can melt are comparable to the temperature of the surface of the Sun. Once the cable seemed to be pulled from below - and cut off. Subsequently, when drilling in the same place, no remnants of the cable were found. What caused these and many other accidents is still a mystery. However, they were not at all the reason for stopping the drilling of the bowels of the Baltic Shield.

Core extraction to the surface.
Extracted core.

Tricone chisel.

12,000 meters of discovery and some hell

“We have the deepest hole in the world - this is how you should use it!” - bitterly exclaims the permanent director of the research and production center "Kola Superdeep" David Guberman. In the first 30 years of the existence of the Kola Superdeep, Soviet and then Russian scientists broke through to a depth of 12,262 meters. But since 1995, drilling has been stopped: there was no one to finance the project. What is allocated within the framework of UNESCO's scientific programs is only enough to maintain the drilling station in working condition and study previously extracted rock samples.

Accordingly, it will be possible to dig a well up to almost 20 kilometers, just up to the mantle.
But already at 5 kilometers the ambient temperature exceeded 700 degrees Celsius, at seven - over 1200 degrees, and at a depth of 12 it was roasting more than 2200 degrees - 1000 degrees higher than predicted. The Kola drillers questioned the theory of the layered structure of the earth's crust - at least in the range up to 12,262 meters.

Eruptive breccia of basalts from a depth of 2977.8 m
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 - the age of the deep layers exceeded 2.8 billion years. At even greater depths, where there are no longer sedimentary rocks, methane appeared in huge concentrations. This completely and utterly destroyed the theory of the biological origin of hydrocarbons such as oil and gas.

Demons

There were also almost fantastic sensations. When, in the late 70s, the Soviet automatic space station brought 124 grams of lunar soil to Earth, the researchers of the Kola Science Center found that it was like two drops of water similar to samples from a depth of 3 kilometers. And a hypothesis arose: the moon broke away from the Kola Peninsula. Now they are looking for exactly where. By the way, the Americans, who brought half a ton of soil from the moon, did nothing sensible with it. Placed in sealed containers and left for research to future generations.

In the history of the Kola Superdeep, it was not without mysticism. Officially, as already mentioned, the well stopped due to lack of funds. Coincidence or not - but it was in that 1995 that a powerful explosion of an unknown nature was heard in the depths of the mine. The journalists of a Finnish newspaper broke through to the inhabitants of Zapolyarny - and the world was shocked by the story of a demon flying out of the bowels of the planet.

Quite unexpectedly for everyone, the predictions of Alexei Tolstoy from the novel "The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin" were confirmed. At a depth of more than 9.5 kilometers, they discovered a real storehouse of all kinds of minerals, in particular gold. A real olivine layer, brilliantly predicted by the writer. Gold in it is 78 grams per ton. By the way, industrial production is possible at a concentration of 34 grams per ton. Perhaps in the near future humanity will be able to take advantage of this wealth.

This is what the Kola Superdeep looks like now, in a deplorable state.

"Voices from Hell" is an audio fragment that exists on the Internet, containing a recording of sounds resembling human voices, screams, groans. It is alleged that the recording was made deep underground, while drilling an ultra-deep well.
I am not a very naive person. It is extremely clear that with the help of a computer you can bungle anything.

But... If we assume that some work at depth was indeed carried out, why not imagine that audio recordings could also be carried out? It is quite possible. So something really could have leaked to the Internet. I listened to the recording again and, to be honest, I felt terrible - if there, in unknown worlds at a monstrous depth, one really hears such - whatever it is - this is at least a reason to think ...

I decided, as far as possible, to find out the history this passage. And it turned out to be not so difficult. Traces led to an old, back in Soviet time a well-known horror story about how scientists, while drilling an ultra-deep well on the Kola Peninsula, "got to hell." The original source of this information was also found - a publication in a certain Finnish newspaper Ammenusastii. In particular, it was there that the name of the Soviet scientist, “Dr. Dmitry Azzakov”, was mentioned, who told the newspaper the following: “We lowered a microphone into the well, designed to record the movement lithospheric plates. 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."

So, it was not difficult to find the source of the appearance of the record. It turned out to be much more difficult to find Dr. Azzakov himself. However, no mention of this person was found anywhere else. All search queries on the Internet produced links only to the article mentioned above.
Then I decided to use the Resident Database largest cities Russia - but not only the mentioned doctor, but in general people with a similar surname were not found. There is no Dr. Azzakov, which means that the record allegedly made by him is a fake! ..
Moreover, something else interesting was found on the Internet regarding this whole story with deep drilling.
It turns out that there was a second version of this story - this time the Norwegian newspaper Asker og Baerums Budstikke told about it. The case allegedly took place in Siberia, where it was not the mythical Russian Azzakov who worked at one of the super-deep mines, but a no less virtual Norwegian - "chief seismologist Bjarni Nummedal." And it was he who made the record. (And also contemplated some monstrous creature that escaped from the dungeon and with difficulty was driven back).

Of course, there are no super-deep mines in Siberia, but this is not important, but what is important is that by seizing on a Norwegian virtual seismologist, the journalists of one of the Moscow publications were able to find the very real author of this whole hellish story. It turned out to be someone Age Rendalin, a Norwegian who, apparently, got bored with the routine work of a teacher in a provincial town, and he began to call himself "special adviser to justice in Norway." The special adviser also turned out to be a great inventor. When he had a heart-to-heart talk with him, he gladly admitted that it was he who launched the hell duck into the press in order to test how easy it was to fool the Scandinavian journalists. It turned out to be easy to carry out, and not only them.
So, everything seems to be very clear. The whole story is fiction, the record is a fake.

And here I ask everyone to collect their thoughts and read the following very carefully.
According to the official website of the Kola drilling site (http://superdeep.pechenga.ru/), in 2005-2006, seismoacoustic recordings were carried out at the well, but after (according to the site's version - due to lack of funding) they were stopped. These are no longer mythical Norwegian seismologists and non-existent Russian doctors. The information is quite official and there are no doubts about its reliability. Even the equipment on which the recording was made is known - this is a VESNA-type tape recorder, MK-60 cassettes (by the way, the fact that there was no newer equipment at the drilling site once again speaks in favor of the reliability of this information.)
So, we found out the most important thing - records at a depth of many kilometers were indeed made. Moreover, they were conducted relatively recently (and it was then that the fragment appeared on the Internet). And further. If someone in the distant past dealt with Soviet audio cassettes, then he probably remembers their characteristic noise that appears after several listening or re-recording. I heard this noise on the recording under study.

Author: Yuri Granovsky
Based on materials from sites: superdeep.pechenga.ru, popmech.ru

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Space under your feet

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Demons

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