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The deepest hole we have ever dug
- snshn 7y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWVNDfDSE44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWVNDfDSE44
- dls2016 7y agoDid you know the hole's only natural enemy is the pile? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DERjNPnr31Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DERjNPnr31Q
- 205guy 7y agoVideo is an Onion parody of info-tainment shows done by investigating a "big hole." I hadn't seen the Onion video parodies before, so I'm glad someone is holding a mirror up to that crap, but truth be told, it is as equally unwatchable as the originals.
- shoptechmedia 7y agoWhen the Russians started to drill they claimed they had found free water – and that was simply not believed by most scientists. There used to be common understanding among Western scientists that the crust was so dense 5km down that water could not permeate through it
- andrewaylett 7y agoThere is, as they say, an XKCD for every situation: https://xkcd.com/1330/ https://xkcd.com/1330/ And showing relative depths -- it always surprises me that modern oil wells aren't actually _all_ that shallower: https://xkcd.com/1040/ https://xkcd.com/1040/
- andrewla 7y agoThe Kola borehole: > reached 12,262 metres (40,230 ft; 7.619 mi) in 1989 While Deepwater Horizon's deepest drill: > In September 2009, the rig drilled the deepest oil well in history at a vertical depth of 35,050 ft (10,683 m) and measured depth of 35,055 ft (10,685 m)
- andrewaylett 7y agoMy understanding is that the well is measured from the point at which drilling starts -- so the Deepwater Horizon started lower down, and one can therefore argue that the depth they reached (as opposed to the depth they drilled) is 11,944m. It's maybe not a useful technical measure, but it's a lot closer in "depth" than I imagined it would be given the amount of attention given to the Kola borehole, and especially the tales of the difficulties they faced. Makes me think that one of the big oil companies could probably beat the record if they wanted.
- creaghpatr 7y agoThat XKCD was great.
- umvi 7y ago> it always surprises me that modern oil wells aren't actually _all_ that shallower There is a theory that oil is actually generated as a by product of the mantle itself, not by buried prehistoric plants. If that's the case, oil could truly be a limitless resource, which is bad news for the climate.
- msisk6 7y agoWell, there's a theory the earth is hollow and inhabited by dinosaurs and aliens, too. ;) I think the best argument against abiogenic petroleum in the mantle is that if the theory had any merit Exxon would have figured out a way to bore into the mantle decades ago.
- MisterTea 7y ago> There is a theory that oil is actually generated as a by product of the mantle itself, not by buried prehistoric plants. Sounds like more like alchemy than actual science. What magical process transmutes rock into long chain hydrocarbons?
- umvi 7y agoI'm not saying I believe it, but the mantle does contain natural hydrocarbons and it's not just "rock" - it's a very slow moving liquid under immense temperatures and pressures. Who knows what kinds of reactions might happen on mantle-crust (or other) boundaries.
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- huhtenberg 7y agoWe did something like /1330/ in Terraria. We drained the ocean directly into the Underworld. It worked beautifully :)
- choeger 7y agoHow long does it take to dig a hole to the mantle? Could we drop nuclear waste in such a hole?
- Cthulhu_ 7y agoI don't think heating up nuclear waste would be a good idea. Even if you don't reach the mantle, it's hundreds of degrees (celsius) down there already. That said, putting nuclear waste deep underground and sealing the hole is probably the best best.
- throwawayhhakdl 7y agoWe already have deep spaces underground for storing nuclear waste. We don’t, however, have a way to transport said waste to said holes.
- cjslep 7y agoNuclear waste is already used to being hot in the reactor core (way hotter than the temperatures in the article), and are still hot after removal from a reactor. That's why spent rods are put into a cooling pool for a year or more after removal from a core. Still, the idea of dumping waste that deep doesn't sound like a good one.
- iso1631 7y agoThe concept is described here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_borehole_disposal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_borehole_disposal But the article sounds like a sales pitch
- boutad 7y agoIt tracks that I would not be the first person to think of this, but long term nuclear "waste" storage came to my mind immediately when I read the article.
- jmkni 7y ago
- mmmBacon 7y agoLink to Lotte Geevan’s recording in the German borehole. According to the article the rumbling sound recorded was unexpected. https://vimeo.com/80266870 https://vimeo.com/80266870
- platz 7y ago> It’s not clear exactly what you hear on Geeven’s recording. She guesses it could be something small like a data transmission that is resonating, but she can’t be sure. In a Heisenberg-ian twist, it seems possible that some of the sounds were created by the devices themselves. "Exactly knowing what it is is not important I believe," she says. "Mysteries are important. They act as engines for new thoughts and ideas."
- SketchySeaBeast 7y agoWere are you pulling that link from? I'm interested to learn more about this - I'm also interested in the technical details about things like what dB the sound was originally. That's quite the rumble - I suspect there was quite a bit of amplification involved.
- platz 7y agohttps://www.wired.com/2014/01/an-artist-records-the-mysterious-rumblings-of-middle-earth/ https://www.wired.com/2014/01/an-artist-records-the-mysterio...
- SketchySeaBeast 7y agoThanks! > "I later learned that blind people can 'hear' thunderstorms because the low frequency can be sensed in the body" Huh. Amazing no one has commented on that.
- finnh 7y agoI suppose she meant deaf people? Not too surprising - a loud thunderclap rattles windows, and seems likely to have low enough tones to be sensed internally. I remember reading about deaf sports teams using low-frequency gongs in place of whistles.
- ilaksh 7y agoIs there any potential for energy generation from the high temperatures?
- Jamwinner 7y agoOr ill effects to cooling the inside of the earth? I like the idea of geothermal, but nothing is free.
- DonHopkins 7y agoCards Against Humanity got people to donate more than $100,000 to dig a big hole for no reason at all. Maybe scientists should try funding a deep bore hole for science by live streaming it. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cards-against-humanity-hole-dig-livestream-watch-video-a7444101.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cards-agai...
- colechristensen 7y agoFigure out how to get a camera that can see the walls of the borehole as it goes down and many people would be interested. Set it up so the digger's progress only continues with a donation so you can "buy" a foot of the depth.
- drharby 7y agoI want to know what the environmental impact on that hole...i mean where is the humor in destroying the planet just because we can? That hole makes me unnervingly angry. And I can't be the only one.
- mokus 7y agoI have a feeling that for a project funded by Cards _against_Humanity_, such a study would just be seen as a way to reveal methods to maximize harm.
- abraae 7y agoYou're not alone. It feels something like releasing hundreds of rubber balloons into the air, pointless and arrogant.
- woah 7y agoFrom the picture it looks like the hole is maybe 30 feet across so the environmental impact is non existent
- bananabreakfast 7y agoThis is extremely reactionary to the point you must be trolling. "Destroying the planet"? Come on. It's a hole in the ground. We make a hole ten times bigger than this every time we build a building.
- tonetheman 7y agoWe are clearly trying to wake up Godzilla and other Kaiju...
- unlinked_dll 7y agoI was under the impression that the Kora borehole went unfinished because the drill broke due to temperature (7 miles down and you're talking hundreds of degrees C), not the breakup of the Soviet Union.
- alamortsubite 7y agoWhile the article says the time at which drilling was stopped was after the breakup, it gives the reason as the high temperatures encountered. "Then it was the turn of the Kola Superdeep Borehole. Drilling was stopped in 1992, when the temperature reached 180C (356F). This was twice what was expected at that depth and drilling deeper was no longer possible."
- iso1631 7y agoSure, but the funding needed to fix and continue wasn't available as the country was collapsing
- edf13 7y agoThe latest project to drill through the mantle... The deep sea drilling vessel Chikyu will drill through the crust where it is the shallowest using tech which wasn't available in any of the previous attempts. Looking forward to this one starting! https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jscejam/71/2/71_I_3/_article https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jscejam/71/2/71_I_3/_ar...
- heydabop 7y agoMy wife and I were talking about this borehole a few weeks ago and wondering why similar projects hadn't been undertaken with newer technology. So thanks for this, interested to see how it turns out!
- platz 7y agoSo if you drill through the crust to the mantle, will magma come up the hole? Will you create a little volcano?
- jofer 7y agoFirst off, this borehole isn't that deep. Over the continents, you'd need to drill to 40-70km to reach the mantle (sometimes even 100km). However, oceanic crust is much thinner. It is technically feasible to drill into the mantle in ocean basins, where the mantle can be only a few km below the seafloor. Regardless, the mantle isn't molten. It's different types of rocks, but they're still rocks. In fact, the mantle is exposed at the surface in a handful of locations (and a good chunk of the ocean floor). We have learned a lot from what's exposed at the surface, but these rocks have been significantly chemically alerted. Many of the minerals we expect to be there are unstable at near surface conditions. We'd learn a _lot_ from "fresh" mantle rocks If you were to maintain the same temperature but drop the pressure to surface conditions, yes, deep mantle rock would melt. A hole with nothing in it going deep enough would cause a volcano (even if it didn't hit the mantle). However, not all of the mantle is hot enough for that to occur. (Again, the mantle is quite shallow beneath the oceans) We also have to keep the pressure at the bottom of the hole the same as the rock around it, so a well doesn't usually release pressure. At any rate, in any case where you'd try to drill into the mantle, it would be impossible for a volcano to form. All that having been said, geothermal drilling in Iceland has hit magma chambers by accident and caused a "mini volcano".
- Andrew_nenakhov 7y agoIf the hole is not wide enough, like less than 1m in diameter, then rising magma would likely cool off and seal the shaft long before the flow would reache the surface.
- K0SM0S 7y agoTo be fair, it probably isn't the easy approach to drill so thin. Paradoxically (or not), the bigger ones are less of a hassle to manage as you dig deeper.
- lb1lf 7y agoPedantry mode: That hole is drilled, not dug. The deepest hole we've dug is probably the Mir diamond mine in Siberia, at 525m [0] (A quick internet search will probably say that the Bingham copper mine in the US is deeper, but that was dug at the bottom of an existing canyon, giving it a head start; the Mir mine started... Well, basically with a bunch of guys with shovels in the middle of the tundra. [0] https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mir-diamond-mine https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mir-diamond-mine
- growlist 7y agoWell ackshually... :) Shout out for the deepest hand dug well: https://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/places/utilities/woodingdean-well/woodingdean-well https://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/places/utilities/woodin...
- justinclift 7y agoThat page says the well was 1285 feet (~390 meters). So, the Mir mine (525 meters) does seem deeper.
- lb1lf 7y ago-True, but at some point I believe it is safe to say that the Soviets started using heavy machinery - an option denied the workhouse inmates who dug the well. (This is where the 'deepest hole dug' contest gets a whiff of 'No true Scotsman...') On some levels I find the well more impressive than the mine, though. A 4ft diameter hole dug 1285ft deep means some 400 cubic meters of dirt was removed. By hand. That's an awful lot of blisters by anyone's standards.
- growlist 7y agoSure - I did specify well.
- wrycoder 7y agoThe deepest open pit mine is the Bingham Canyon mine, at over 1200 m. The deepest mine is TauTona in South Africa, at 3900 m. These were done using power equipment, but they aren’t boreholes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining
- etxm 7y agoMaybe literally speaking, but the deepest hole we have ever dug metaphorically would be this whole social media thing, amirite?
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 7y agocryptocurrency is pretty bad too.
- CNJ7654 7y agoayo
- syspec 7y ago“What was clear for the experience of the Russians was that you have to drill as vertical as possible because otherwise you increase torque on the drills and kinks in the hole,” says Uli Harms. “The solution was to develop vertical drilling systems...” Great article, but does anyone have any insight as to what those techniques were?
- pjc50 7y agoI suspect that's obsolete now that directional drilling has become widespread - it's routine to curve into different parts of a field from the same rig.
- arnsholt 7y agoI'm guessing directional drilling techniques. I'm not sure exactly how they work, but I know that they are often used when drilling oil and gas production wells so that you can penetrate a reservoir laterally rather than drilling a bunch of more or less vertical wells. Especially useful if your reservoir is fairly thin but wide.
- opwieurposiu 7y agoInstead of turning the bit by turning the entire string of pipe, you can turn only the bit with a mud-motor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_motor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_motor
- Scirra_Tom 7y agoWould drilling holes deep enough theoretically allow us to harvest thermal energy on a meaningful scale?
- cryptica 7y agoWhen the article mentioned that the temperature was twice what they had expected, I wondered the exact same thing. Could they cover the hole, pour water into it and use air pressure changes in the hole to generate electricity? There must be a way to make the hole air tight. I suspect that the rock near the bottom of the hole would already be air tight. Also I never understood why steam engines release all the hot stream into the air? Doesn't that waste energy to let the hot steam out? Isn't it better to keep the heat trapped inside the system and generate electricity from the pressure only?
- Turing_Machine 7y ago> Also I never understood why steam engines release all the hot stream into the air? They don't. All practical steam engines have condensers that recover most of the water and as much of the heat as current technology and the laws of thermodynamics allow.
- cryptica 7y agoI was thinking that if the steam had to travel up 10km to the surface, that would give it more time to cool down. Maybe in cold countries, they could use outside air temperature to cool rising steam before it reaches the top of the hole.
- m4rtink 7y agoIn steam trains it is often injected to the chimney to increase draft, forcing more air through the firebox, improving combustion. This of course uses up a massive amount of water. For this reason most steam engines in ships and elsewhere generally did have condensers & reused the steam as feedwater, as you describe.
- technothrasher 7y ago
- passwordreset 7y agoThe deepest hole we have ever dug (bbc.com) = Doctor Who, season 12. (j/k)
- pontifier 7y agoIt's interesting what they said near the end... Most of the cost of a project like this isn't going to be spent on the actual drilling. Most of it will go into supporting the people who are supporting the infrastructure that enables the drill team to do the work of doing the actual drilling... I've just finished applied for a government grant, and am starting to realize just how inefficient these projects need to be to support the people doing the work. I've probably underestimated my own costs by a lot, and allocated too much toward the actual science I'll be doing.
- K0SM0S 7y agoObligatory, some forward-looking ('hard' sci-fi) physics and observations about drilling to the Earth core, by Isaac Arthur. https://youtu.be/jZQP2oNDkAM https://youtu.be/jZQP2oNDkAM Warning: nerd alert!
- thamer 7y agoHow long would it take to fall 40,230 feet? I'm guessing the drill doesn't go straight down, but it's still a fun thought experiment. This free-fall calculator[1] (with air resistance) reports a fall duration of 229 seconds (3m49s) with 121mph velocity for a 72kg mass with the default air resistance coefficient as used in skydiving. [1] https://keisan.casio.com/exec/system/1231475371 https://keisan.casio.com/exec/system/1231475371
- animal531 7y agoI imagine that if the hole isn't that wide then it would be harder to displace air, meaning that you should fall slower.
- tomjuggler 7y agoAnyone else click on the link thinking it was an article about Brexit?