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Kola Superdeep Borehole
- abhiminator 8y agoSuper interesting. It's kind of hard to believe how our species has managed to explore furthest of planets, stars and galaxies while just drilling 7.62 miles through the crust of the very planet we exist on and "dominate" [0] -- a testament to how challenging crust drilling can be, right on par with exploring deepest parts of Earth's oceans. [0] https://www.fs.blog/2016/01/yuval-noah-hararri-on-why-we-dominate-the-earth-myth-making/ https://www.fs.blog/2016/01/yuval-noah-hararri-on-why-we-dom...
- avian 8y agoI don’t find it surprising at all that we found traveling through a vacuum easier than traveling through solid granite. Imagine how much mass that drillbit had to go through and now translate that into the density of interstellar medium. You could probably travel half way across the galaxy before your space ship went through as much matter as that drill.
- mark212 8y ago> a testament to how challenging crust drilling can be, > right on par with exploring deepest parts of Earth's oceans. except if you read the footnotes it says that Exxon beat the world's record for length of borehole in 60 days. Sounds like drilling in the crust is NBD, been doing it for years, the innovation is all in how to make it turn and twist and do so on time and under budget. My sense is that it's just not economically rational to drill a hole straight down for no other reason than you want to see how far it can go. Why bother? But it doesn't seem at all to be a technical problem.
- Jaruzel 8y agoContinental crust is between 20 miles deep and 50 miles deep, this borehole 'only' managed to get to 7.4 miles deep - we've still go a long way to go before we get to The Lost World of the Dinosaurs.
- brian-armstrong 8y agoThis article lead me down the rabbit hole to the page for Mud (drilling fluid) engineer, which might be one of the most vandalized articles I've ever seen (# vandalizing edits/total edits) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:History/Mud_engineer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:History/Mud_engineer
- mark212 8y agoglad I'm not the only one who went down that hole (pun very much intended) and started watching videos about the Reelwell Drilling Method and horizontal displacement techniques.
- walrus01 8y agoYou fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.".
- ofrzeta 8y agoSee also the image gallery: http://rusue.com/abandoned-kola-superdeep-borehole/ http://rusue.com/abandoned-kola-superdeep-borehole/
- Vekz 8y ago"It is rumored that at some point the drilling rig began to vibrate unnaturally as if someone were jerking for it from below."
- varjag 8y ago1990s were also the times when Russians got very superstitious.
- taneq 8y ago"When the well reached a mark of about 12,000 meters, scientific equipment recorded sounds resembling the cries and groans of thousands of martyrs emanating from the depths." I think we've crossed the line from documentary to creepypasta.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y agoI would like to understand why drilling stopped at the depth it did. Was it something to do with the material at that depth, something to do with the drill, some other factor?
- abhiminator 8y ago>Because of higher-than-expected temperatures at this depth and location, 180 °C (356 °F) instead of the expected 100 °C (212 °F), drilling deeper was deemed unfeasible and the drilling was stopped in 1992. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole#Drilling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole#Drilli...
- wallace_f 8y ago180C sounds like a rock that somehow got into the oven and can be easily removed with mitts on, not something like 1,000C lava. In other words I'm confused by why 180C stopped the drilling process.
- nerdponx 8y agoSomeone attempted to explain that in this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17337270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17337270
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Jerry2 8y ago>I would like to understand why drilling stopped at the depth it did. Was it something to do with the material at that depth, something to do with the drill, some other factor? At that depth, pressure and temperature, the rock behaved like plastic and not solid and the drill was ineffective since the hole would immediately close as they pulled the drill. So they had to give up.
- 8y ago
- amelius 8y agoDid they make any special geological discoveries? Did they find any precious metals, etc.? Also, I'm wondering, is it possible to measure the depth of the hole using a laser?
- bcraven 8y ago> Did they make any special geological discoveries? [From the Wikipedia article:] To scientists, one of the more fascinating findings to emerge from this well is that no transition from granite to basalt was found at the depth of about 7 km (4.3 mi), where the velocity of seismic waves has a discontinuity. Instead the change in the seismic wave velocity is caused by a metamorphic transition in the granite rock. In addition, the rock at that depth had been thoroughly fractured and was saturated with water, which was surprising. This water, unlike surface water, must have come from deep-crust minerals and had been unable to reach the surface because of a layer of impermeable rock. Another unexpected discovery was a large quantity of hydrogen gas. The mud that flowed out of the hole was described as "boiling" with hydrogen. > Did they find any precious metals, etc.? These concentrate in veins, so the single borehole would not be the best way to find out. They were probably recorded in mud logs somewhere. > is it possible to measure the depth of the hole using a laser Holes like this are very rarely totally straight as the geology likes to manipulate the drill string as it descends. Whilst this won't be a true deviated well (due to the research goals) I'd be very surprised if there's a vertical hole.
- amelius 8y ago> I'd be very surprised if there's a vertical hole. Ok, is the reported depth the true depth, or the length along the hole?
- dirktheman 8y agoOn this page, about 1/3 down the way (it's in Russian) is a nice schematic of the hole that shows it's not vertical at all: https://realt.onliner.by/2015/11/19/kola https://realt.onliner.by/2015/11/19/kola The depth is the true depth, apparently.
- m0skit0 8y agoBack when Russia actually did science.
- m0skit0 8y agoList of Science Nobel Prizes educated in the USSR: - Andre Geim, Physics, 2010 - Konstantin Novoselov, Physics, 2010 - Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov, Physics, 2003 - Vitaly Ginzburg, Physics, 2003 - Zhores Alferov, Physics, 2000 - Pyotr Kapitsa, Physics, 1978 - Ilya Prigogine, Chemistry, 1977 - Leonid Kantorovich, Economics, 1975 - Nikolay Basov, Physics, 1964 - Alexander Prokhorov, Physics, 1964 - Lev Landau, Physics, 1962 - Pavel Cherenkov, Physics, 1958 - Igor Tamm, Physics, 1958 - Ilya Mikhailovich Frank, Physics, 1958 - Nikolay Semyonov, Chemistry, 1956 List of Nobel Prizes educated in post-Soviet Russia:
- kaffeemitsahne 8y agoI imagine there are political reasons for this.
- m0skit0 8y agoYou mean a Monarchy Western-based association has anything to win giving prizes to the Evil Empire at the peak of the Cold War? Hardly convincing.
- Fins 8y agoMost of them either were educated in (old, pre-USSR) Russia, or by people who had Russian education. Once the generation changed, people educated in/by Soviet system achieved... well, you've listed it.
- saagarjha 8y agoThe borehole has now been welded shut and is surrounded by the ruins of the project. The actual borehole itself is pretty unassuming for something that goes twelve kilometers into the Earth's crust: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole#/media/File:Сама_скважина(заварена),_август_2012.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole#/media...
- avian 8y agoHow stable are abandoned holes like that? I would imagine that at those temperatures and pressures, the rock would slowly flow and refill the hole after a while.
- mnw21cam 8y agoIt got to 180C at the bottom. That's nowhere near hot enough to melt rock. Not sure about the pressure though. I get the feeling though that rock tends to either stay put or shift all at once (like an earthquake).
- avian 8y agoNot hot enough to melt, but heat definitely reduces structural integrity of materials. And pressures on the rock so deep are immense. This article linked from Wikipedia seems to confirm that the hole tended to close itself when they were drilling: "At that level of heat and pressure, the rocks began to act more like a plastic than a solid, and the hole had a tendency to flow closed whenever the drill bit was pulled out for replacement." https://www.damninteresting.com/the-deepest-hole/ https://www.damninteresting.com/the-deepest-hole/
- dirktheman 8y agoThere's a well known urban legend about the borehole that they stopped drilling when a scientist lowered a microphone into the hole. When they played back the recording they heard terrible screams, supposedly from people trapped in hell. Nice campfire story! Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_to_Hell_hoax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_to_Hell_hoax
- toomanybeersies 8y agoAny mention of the Kola Borehole isn't complete without a mention to this story.
- Pandavonium 8y agoA nice video explainer from scishow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz6v6OfoQvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz6v6OfoQvs
- Something1234 8y agoPlease don't link to scishow. They produce trash, and often don't do due diligence with their videos.
- Pandavonium 8y agoThat's a shame, I like their presenters. Are there any interesting science-related YouTube channels that you can recommend?
- Something1234 8y agoI like a lot of PBS's content. Like physics girl, and what the physics. Engineer Guy also produces good content. MinutePhysics is also a good choice. As for math related topics, I love 3Blue1Brown. In general I find science journalism lacking. My biggest problem with SciShow is that it's a bunch of people who lack a true science background commenting on topics. I really don't think that they do their due diligence in reporting, there's been cases where they present incorrect findings, and hype up the physically impossible.
- Pandavonium 8y agoCool, thanks for the recommendations. I gravitated to SciShow because was produced by Hank Green, who's other YouTube offerings I really enjoy. I guess it's a lesson to be more critical with my sources, regardless of the author's previous work.
- bitL 8y agoWas there some explosion in one of those buildings? Doesn't look like theft/vandalism to me...
- Already__Taken 8y agoLooks like the drill tower used to be there, maybe they just wholesale lifted the proprietary drilling rig out of there. I'm sure they had to invent a thing or two about drilling to do this research.
- nellaby 8y agoReally interesting experiment. Since the temperature was greater than expected would that have any bearing on being able to use bore holes for geothermal power? I believe they are trialling this in a few places but I can't help but think that a hole that small (circumference wise!) could be easily implemented and potentially used as an energy source
- wruza 8y agoAlso, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_to_Hell_hoax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_to_Hell_hoax
- asah 8y agoI'm curious: What did/does such a project cost? Is there substantial scientific value to going further? I can imagine some tech billionaire(s) funding a follow-on project, esp in a more hospitable location that could attract tourists, press, etc.
- knbknb 8y agoI have re-created a CGI Script that we have programmed years ago, when some Russian geologists were visiting our institute. This visualises a generalised lithological log: That means, some of the rocks recovered from the hole, and their thicknesses. https://data.icdp-online.org/sites/kola/tpl/litholog_sel.htm https://data.icdp-online.org/sites/kola/tpl/litholog_sel.htm Let's seee if I manage to make the script more interactive.