The deepest water well. underground unearthly
Many scientific and industrial works involve drilling underground wells. The total number of such objects in Russia alone is hardly calculable. But legendary Kola superdeep has remained unsurpassed since the 1990s, extending more than 12 kilometers deep into the Earth! It was drilled not for economic gain, but out of purely scientific interest - to find out what processes are happening inside the planet.
Kola superdeep well. First stage drilling rig (depth 7600 m), 1974
50 candidates per position
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, 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 location was not accidental - it is here, on the territory of the Baltic Shield, that the oldest rocks, which are three billion years old, come to the surface.
WITH late XIX century, the theory has been known 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 up 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 resembled a space race, with leading countries trying to get ahead of each other. It was suggested that at great depths there are rich deposits of minerals, including gold.
The Americans were the first to drill ultra-deep wells. In the early 1960s, their scientists discovered that the Earth's crust was much thinner under the oceans. Therefore, the area near the island of Maui (one of the Hawaiian Islands), where the earth’s mantle is located at a depth of approximately five kilometers (plus a 4-kilometer layer of water), was chosen as the most promising place for work. But both attempts by US researchers ended in failure.
The Soviet Union needed to respond with dignity. Our researchers proposed creating 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 scientific workers worked at the well research laboratories. Getting a job here was no less difficult than getting into the cosmonaut corps. Ordinary employees received 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
Drilling to a depth of 7263 meters was carried out using conventional serial installation, which at that time was used in oil or gas production. This stage took four years. Then there was a year-long break for the construction of a new tower and installation of a more powerful Uralmash-15000 installation, created in Sverdlovsk and called “Severyanka”. Its work used the turbine principle - when not the entire column rotates, but only the drilling head.
With every meter passed, the excavation became more difficult. 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 reached 220 °C!
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 start of the International Geological Congress in Moscow.
Congress delegates were shown soil samples taken from a record depth of 12 kilometers, and a trip to the well was organized for them. Photos and articles about the Kola Superdeep Pit circulated in all the world's leading newspapers and magazines, and postage stamps were issued in its honor in several countries.
But the main thing is that a real sensation was prepared especially for the congress. It turned out that rock samples taken at a 3-kilometer depth of the Kola well are completely identical to lunar soil (it was first delivered 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 was torn away from it as a result of a cosmic catastrophe. Now it was possible to say that the breakaway part of our planet, billions of years ago, came into contact with the area of the current Kola Peninsula.
The ultra-deep well became a real triumph of 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 mine was suspended. They were resumed only in September 1984. And the very first launch led to a major accident. The employees seemed to have forgotten that changes were constantly taking place inside the underground passage. 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 deep. 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. They approached a depth of 12 kilometers for the second time only six years later. In 1990, the maximum was reached - 12,262 meters.
And then the operation of the well was affected both by failures on a local scale and by events taking place in the country. The capabilities of the existing technology were exhausted, and government 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 guess about rich deposits of minerals at great depths. Certainly, precious metals it was not found there in its pure form. But at the nine-kilometer mark, seams with a gold content of 78 grams per ton were discovered (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 was commonly thought.
It was believed that at superdepths there is not 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 its closure, in 1989, the Kola Superdeep Pipe again became the center of international attention. The director of the well, academician David Guberman, suddenly began to receive calls and letters from all over the world. Scientists, journalists, and simply inquisitive citizens were interested in the question: is it true that an ultra-deep well has become a “well to hell”?
It turned out that representatives of the Finnish press talked with some employees of the Kola Superdeep. And they admitted: when the drill passed the 12-kilometer mark, strange noises began to be heard from the depths of the well. The workers lowered a heat-resistant microphone instead of the drill head - and with its help they recorded sounds reminiscent of human screams. One of the employees put forward the version that this the cries of sinners in hell.
How true are such stories? Technically, placing a microphone instead of a drill is difficult, but possible. True, the work to lower it may 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 well employees actually heard strange sounds that regularly came from the depths. And no one knew for sure what it could be.
At the instigation of Finnish journalists, the world press published a number of articles claiming that the Kola superdeep is “the road to hell.” Mystical significance began to be attributed to the fact that the USSR collapsed when the drillers were excavating the “unlucky” thirteen thousand meters.
In 1995, when the station was already mothballed, an incomprehensible explosion occurred in the depths of the mine - if only for the reason that there was nothing there to explode. Foreign newspapers reported that through a passage made by people, a demon flew from the bowels of the Earth to the surface (the publications were full of headlines like “Satan escaped from hell”).
Well director David Guberman honestly admitted in his interview: he does not believe in hell and demons, but an incomprehensible explosion actually took place, as did strange noises reminiscent of voices. Moreover, an examination carried out 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 some of the equipment was dismantled. The above-ground part of the well is a building the size of a 12-story building, now it is abandoned and is gradually collapsing. 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 was previously in charge of the well, its restoration would cost 100 million rubles.
But oh scientific works at depth there is no longer any question: on the basis of this object it is only possible to open an institute or other enterprise for training offshore drilling specialists. Or create a museum - after all, the Kola well continues to be the deepest in the world.
Anastasia BABANOVSKAYA, magazine "Secrets of the 20th Century" No. 5 2017
In the USSR they loved scale, and more, and this extended to literally everything. So one well was dug in the Union, which even today bears the title of the deepest on earth. It is noteworthy that the well was not drilled for oil production or geological exploration, but purely for scientific research.
Tips used to drill a well.
The Kola Superdeep Well, or SG-3, is the deepest well in the earth made by man. It is located in the Murmansk region, 10 kilometers from the city of Zapolyarny, in a western direction. The depth of the hole is 12,262 meters. Its diameter at the top is 92 centimeters. At the bottom - 21.5 centimeters. Important feature SG-3 is that, unlike any other wells for oil production or geological work, this one was drilled solely for scientific purposes.
The well was laid in 1970, on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin. The chosen location is notable because the well was drilled into exposed volcanic rocks more than 3 billion years old. By the way, the age of the Earth is about 4.5 billion years. When extracting minerals, wells are rarely drilled deeper than two thousand meters.
The work went on for days on end.
Drilling began on May 24, 1970. Up to the level of 7 thousand meters, drilling proceeded easily and calmly, but after the head hit less dense rocks, problems began. The process has slowed down significantly. Only on June 6, 1979, a new record was set - 9583 meters. It was previously installed in the US by oil producers. The mark of 12,066 meters was passed in 1983. The result was achieved by the International Geological Congress, which was held in Moscow. Subsequently, two accidents occurred at the complex.
Now the complex looks like this.
In 1997, several legends were circulated in the media that the Kola superdeep well was the real road to hell. One of these legends said that when the team lowered a microphone to a depth of several thousand meters, human screams, moans and screams were heard there.
Of course, there was nothing like that. If only because special equipment is used to record sound in a well at such a depth - but it did not record anything. Several accidents actually occurred at the complex, including an underground explosion during drilling, but geologists certainly did not disturb any underground “demons.”
The well itself is mothballed.
What is really important is that SG-3 had 16 research laboratories. During times Soviet Union domestic geologists were able to make many valuable discoveries and better understand how our planet works. Work at the site allowed us to significantly improve drilling technology. Scientists were also able to understand local geological processes and received comprehensive data on thermal mode subsoil, underground gases and deep waters.
Unfortunately, today the Kola superdeep well is closed. The complex building has been deteriorating since the last laboratory here was closed in 2008 and all equipment was dismantled. The reason is simple - lack of funding. In 2010, the well was already mothballed. Now it is slowly but surely being destroyed under the influence of natural processes.
You know that people have been unraveling the mysteries of the planet for centuries? They tried to find answers under their feet. TravelAsk will tell you about the largest wells in the world.
What history says
They tried to descend to the depths of the Earth many times. The Chinese were among the first. In the 13th century, they dug a well 1200 meters deep.
In 1930, Europeans broke this record: they drilled into the earth's surface to a depth of three kilometers.
Time passed, and this figure kept growing. So, at the end of the 1950s, the wells already reached 7 kilometers.
The deepest well in the world
In fact, most wells are made during mining. Today the record belongs to the well of the Chayvinskoye field Z-42. It was built in a very short time: just over 70 days. It belongs to the Sakhalin-1 project and is an oil project.
Its depth is 12,700 meters. Just imagine, the highest mountain on Earth is Everest. It goes almost 9 kilometers into the sky. And the deepest trench is the Mariana Trench. It is about 11 kilometers. That is, well Z-42 surpassed all indicators of Mother Nature.
Well in the Murmansk region
But we want to tell you in more detail about one special well. It is located in the Murmansk region, about 10 kilometers from the city of Zapolyarny. It is called the Kola superdeep well. Its depth is 12,262 meters. It is interesting because it was originally created not for mining, but for studying the lithosphere.
The diameter of the well at the surface of the earth is 92 centimeters, and the diameter of the lower part is 21.5 centimeters.
The temperature during drilling at a depth of 5 kilometers was 70 degrees, at a depth of 7 kilometers - 120 degrees, and at a depth of 12 kilometers - 220 degrees.
The Kola superdeep well was laid in 1970 on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin. The main goal was to study volcanic rocks, which are rarely drilled for mining. More than 15 research laboratories operated here.
They curtailed their activities in 1990, as many accidents occurred here: drill strings often broke off.
Today the facility is abandoned, and the well itself is mothballed and begins to collapse.
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Naturally, all the equipment was dismantled, and the building, which long time not used, slowly turning into ruins.
To resume work, a considerable amount is needed - about 100 million rubles, so no one knows whether the well will ever be opened.
Research results
Scientists believed that at a certain depth they would find a clearly defined boundary between granites and basalts. But, alas, all the works did not provide a clear understanding of the nature of the earth’s mantle. And then the researchers even stated that the place to start work was not the most successful.
Road to hell
That's what they call it Kola well. Moreover, there are still many rumors about her related to the other world. So, there are stories that at a depth of 12 kilometers, scientists’ equipment recorded screams and moans coming from the bowels of the Earth.
American television even officially announced this legend: in 1989, the Trinity Broadcasting Network television company told this story to its viewers. Well, then there’s more: in the tabloid newspapers of that time one could also find interesting stories. For example, that scientists heard screams and moans, but did not stop the research. And every kilometer was imprinted with misfortune on the country. So, when the drillers reached the 13-kilometer mark, the USSR collapsed. And at a depth of 14.5 kilometers, they generally discovered voids. Intrigued by this unexpected discovery, the researchers lowered a microphone there that could operate at extremely low temperatures. high temperatures, and other sensors. The temperature inside reached 1,100 degrees - well, a real hellfire. And they heard human screams.
In fact acoustic methods Well surveys do not record the actual sound and do not record it with a microphone. They record on seismic receivers the wave pattern of reflected elastic vibrations excited by the emitter device with a frequency of 10 - 20 kHz and 20 kHz - 2 MHz. Well, we already wrote about the depth: no one reached the 13-kilometer mark.
However, one of the authors of the project D.M. Huberman later said: “When people ask me about this mysterious story, I don’t know what to answer. On the one hand, stories about the “demon” are bullshit. On the other hand, as an honest scientist, I cannot say that I know what exactly happened here. Indeed, a very strange noise was recorded, then there was an explosion... A few days later, nothing similar was found at the same depth.”.
Perhaps we will end the story on such a mysterious note. Think for yourself, decide for yourself whether this is really the road to hell.
In one of the scientific programs they gave a simple example that allows you to realize how huge our planet is. Imagine big balloon. This is the entire planet. And the thinnest walls are the zone where there is life. But people have actually mastered only one layer of atoms surrounding this wall.
But humanity is constantly striving to expand its knowledge about the planet and the processes occurring on it. We launch spaceships and satellites, we build submarines, but the hardest thing is to find out what is under our feet, inside the earth.
Wells bring relative understanding. With their help, you can find out the composition of rocks, study changes in physical conditions, and also conduct mineral exploration. And the deepest well in the world will, of course, bring the most information. The only question is where exactly it is. This is what we will try to figure out today.
OR-11
It is not surprising that the longest well was made quite recently, in 2011. New, more advanced technologies, durable and reliable materials, and accurate calculation methods made it possible to achieve this result.
Surely you will be pleased to know that it is located in Russia, and was drilled as part of the Sakhalin-1 project. All work required only 60 days, which far exceeds the results of previous surveys.
The total length of this record-breaking well is 12 kilometers 345 meters, which remains an unsurpassed record. Another achievement is the maximum length of the horizontal trunk, which is 11 kilometers 475 meters. So far no one has been able to surpass this result. But that's it for now.
BD-04A
This oil well in Qatar is famous for its record depth at that time. Its total length is 12 kilometers 289 meters, of which 10,902 meters is a horizontal trunk. By the way, it was built in 2008, and held the record for three whole years.
But this deep well is known not only for its impressive size, but also for a very sad fact. It was built next to an oil shelf for geological exploration, and in 2010 it suffered a serious accident.
This is what the well looks like now
Drilled during the USSR, the Kola superdeep well lost its title of leader in 2008. But still, it remains one of the most famous objects of this type and continues to hold third place.
Preparatory work for drilling began back in 1970. It was planned that this well would become the deepest on Earth, reaching 15 kilometers. True, such a result was never achieved. In 1992, work was suspended when the depth reached an impressive 12 kilometers 262 meters. Further research had to be stopped due to lack of funding and government support.
With its help, it was possible to obtain a lot of interesting scientific data and gain a deeper understanding of the structure earth's crust. This is not surprising, since the project was initially completely scientific, not related to geological exploration or the study of mineral deposits.
By the way, the popular legend about the “well to hell” is associated with the Kola superdeep well. They say that when they reached the 11-kilometer mark, scientists heard terrifying screams. And soon after that the drill broke. According to legend, this indicates the existence of hell underground, in which sinners are tormented. It was their screams that were heard by scientists.
True, the legend does not stand up to criticism. If only because no acoustic equipment could operate at pressure and temperature at these levels. But, on the other hand, it is quite interesting to speculate that the deepest borehole will be able to reach, if not hell, then some other legendary and mythical places.
For now, they just help scientists better understand how our planet lives. And although the journey to the center of the earth is still very far away, people are clearly striving for it.
"Dr. Huberman, what the hell did you dig up down there?" - a remark from the audience interrupted the report of a Russian scientist at a UNESCO meeting in Australia. A couple of weeks earlier, in April 1995, a wave of reports about a mysterious accident at the Kola superdeep well swept across the world.
Allegedly, on approaching 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 that. A few seconds after the terrible sound appeared, an explosion occurred...
Space under your feet
In the late 70s - early 80s, getting a job at the Kola Superdeep Well, as residents of the village of Zapolyarny in the Murmansk Region affectionately call the well, was more difficult than getting into the cosmonaut corps. Out of hundreds of applicants, one or two were chosen. Along with the job order, the lucky ones received separate apartment and a salary equal to double or triple the salary of Moscow professors. There were 16 research laboratories operating at the well simultaneously, each the size of an average factory. Only the Germans dug the earth with such tenacity, 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 humanity much better than what is located under the earth’s crust a few kilometers away 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 was believed that the Earth consists of a crust, mantle and core. At the same time, no one could really say where one layer ends and the next begins. Scientists did not even know what these layers actually consist of. Some 40 years ago they were sure that the granite layer begins at a depth of 50 meters and continues up to 3 kilometers, and then there are basalts. The mantle was expected to be encountered 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 Site have proven 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 places where the crust should have been thinner - the goal was to reach the mantle. For example, the Americans drilled in the area of the island of Maui, Hawaii, where, according to seismic studies, ancient rocks emerge under the ocean floor and the mantle is located at a depth of approximately 5 kilometers under a four-kilometer layer of water. Alas, not a single ocean drilling site has penetrated deeper than 3 kilometers.
In general, almost all projects of ultra-deep wells mysteriously ended at a depth of three kilometers. It was at this moment that something strange began to happen to the drills: either they found themselves in unexpected super-hot areas, or as if they were being bitten off by some unprecedented monster. Only 5 wells broke through deeper than 3 kilometers, 4 of which were Soviet. And only the Kola Superdeep was destined to overcome the 7-kilometer mark.
Initial domestic projects also involved underwater drilling - in the Caspian Sea or on Lake Baikal. But in 1963, drilling scientist Nikolai Timofeev convinced State Committee according to science and technology of the USSR is that it is necessary to create a well on the continent. Although it would take much longer to drill, 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 that the most significant movements of earth rocks took place in prehistoric times. The drilling point was not chosen on the Kola Peninsula 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 layers of the Baltic Shield is a visual history of the planet over the past 3 billion years.
Conqueror of the Depths
The appearance of the Kola drilling rig can disappoint the average person. The well is not like the mine that our imagination pictures. There are no descents underground, only a drill with a diameter of a little more than 20 centimeters goes into the thickness. Imaginary Kola section ultra-deep well looks like a tiny needle piercing the earth's thickness. A drill with numerous sensors, located at the end of a needle, is raised and lowered over several days. You can’t go faster: 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 underground can be seriously frightening. The sounds coming from below really look like screams and howls. To this we can add a long list of accidents that plagued the Kola Superdeep when it reached a depth of 10 kilometers. Twice the drill was taken out melted, although the temperatures at which it can melt are comparable to the temperature of the surface of the Sun. One day, it was as if the cable had been pulled from below and was torn off. Subsequently, when they drilled in the same place, no remains of the cable were found. What caused these and many other accidents still remains a mystery. However, they were not the reason for stopping drilling in the Baltic Shield.
12,226 meters of discoveries and a little devilry
“We have the deepest hole in the world - so we must use it!” - David Guberman, the permanent director of the Kola Superdeep Research and Production Center, exclaims bitterly. In the first 30 years 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 on 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 end of the world began,” says Huberman. Theorists promised 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. But already at 5 kilometers ambient temperature exceeded 70 ºC, at depth 7 - over 120 ºC, and at depth 12 it was hotter than 220 ºC - 100 ºC higher than predicted. Kola drillers questioned the theory of the layered structure of the earth's crust - at least in the interval up to 12,262 meters.
At school we were taught: there are young rocks, granites, basalts, mantle and core. But the granites turned out to be 3 kilometers lower than expected. Next there should have been basalts. They weren't found at all. All drilling took place in the granite layer. This is a very 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 turns out to have arisen 1.5 billion years earlier than expected. At depths where it was believed that there was no organic matter, 14 species of fossilized microorganisms were discovered - the age of the deep layers exceeded 2.8 billion years. At even greater depths, where there are no longer sediments, methane appeared in huge concentrations. This completely and completely destroyed the theory of the biological origin of hydrocarbons such as oil and gas
Demons
There were almost fantastic sensations. When, in the late 70s, the Soviet automatic space station brought 124 grams of lunar soil to Earth, researchers at the Kola Science Center found that it was like two peas in a pod 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 where exactly.
The history of the Kola Superdeep is not without mysticism. Officially, as already mentioned, the well stopped due to lack of funds. Coincidence or not - but it was in that year 1995 that a sound was heard in the depths of the mine. powerful explosion of unknown nature. Journalists from a Finnish newspaper broke through to the residents of Zapolyarny - and the world was shocked by the story of a demon flying out of the bowels of the planet.
“When UNESCO began to ask me about this mysterious story, 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 to us. A very strange noise was recorded, then there was an explosion... A few days later, nothing like that was found at the same depth,” recalls academician David Guberman.
Quite unexpectedly for everyone, Alexei Tolstoy’s predictions from the novel “Engineer Garin’s Hyperboloid” were confirmed. At a depth of over 9.5 kilometers, a real treasure trove of all kinds of minerals, in particular gold, was discovered. A real olivine belt, brilliantly predicted by the writer. It contains 78 grams of gold 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.
