The deepest man-made hole in the world

Getting to know the extremes of our planet is something all of us enjoys doing. As human beings, we are curious and adventurous, we always want to go further, higher and deeper. Breaking the natural boundaries is what we do on a daily basis, from the beginning of our existence.

One such boundary is the crust of our Planet. We constantly plow it and drill it in order to take out the precious things inside. However, the scientists do it for another reason, they just want to dig trough it and find out what lays inside beyond it, in the center of Earth. The core of the planet has been a mystery for humanity for a long time. It has been often mentioned in myths, legends and various fictional and religious texts. Science has a different approach for this subject: take a big drill and start drilling.

Many attempts to drill trough Earth’s crust have been made since the 1950’s, but no one so far managed to reach the final goal. Most of the stuff that scientists knew about the structure of the earth, back in the 1950’s, was theoretical. Everything changed in the early 60’s and in the 70’s when the USA and the Soviet Union started a new version of the “space race”, a race to the center of the Earth if we can call it like that.

The American project was called, “Project Mohole“. They began drilling their hole on the Pacific coast of Mexico in 1961, but soon, after the initial drilling, they abandoned the project due to lack of funding. The Russian team was more fortunate in their efforts. They started drilling at a location on the Kola Peninsula on 24 May 1970. This scientific endeavor was called, “The Kola Superdeep Borehole” (Кольская сверхглубокая скважина) and from 1970 to 1994 they managed to penetrate one-third of the way through the Baltic continental crust and actually make the deepest hole in the world which, in true depth terms, still holds the record today.

When they started drilling the main goal of the project was reaching down to 15,000 m (49,000 ft). There were a number of boreholes drilled that branched from one central hole. The deepest branch, called SG-3, reached its final depth of 12,262 m (40,230 ft) in 1989. The plan was to continue drilling and reach 13,500 m (44,300 ft) by the end of 1990 and after that go down to 15,000 m (49,000 ft) by 1993, but unexpected conditions and high temperatures on this depth stopped the operation in 1992. The expected temperature on the depth of 12,000 meters was 100 °C (212 °F), and they measured 180 °C (356 °F). According to this measurement, getting down to 15,000 meters would mean that the temperature will be 300 °C (570 °F), and it was impossible for the drill bit to work in this conditions.

The picture above depicts the mess that was left after the site was abandoned. It’s a little disappointing that it looks like this. You expect that the gateway that leads to the underworld would look more spectacular, more like a temple (for the reptilian people that live down there!), but no, there is only a rusty metal cap welded over it and a lot of junk. What lays beneath all this junk is a mystery.

Drilling stopped in the early 1990’s and the project was officially closed down in 2005. The facilities were abandoned and dismantled in 2008, all that is left are the ruins of the building, which you can visit if you are curious.

The Kola Superdeep Borehole gave the world of science some major discoveries. Because of it, we now know more about our planet’s structure. One of the most intriguing discoveries was the presence of microscopic plankton fossils four miles beneath the surface! The fossils found at these unexpected depths were remarkably intact despite the unbelievable pressures and temperatures there. A proof that life is more resiliant than we think.