The deepest well in the world - Kola (SG-3)

The USSR is a country that surprised the world with many projects, grandiose both in scale and in cost. One of these projects was called "Kola superdeep well" (SG-3)... Its implementation began in the Murmansk region, 10 km west of the city of Zapolyarny.

Scientists wanted to learn more about the interior of the earth, and "wipe their nose" American scientists who abandoned their project "Mohol" due to lack of funds. When asked about what is the deepest well in the world, Soviet geologists dreamed of answering with pride: ours!

We will describe in detail in this article whether such an ambitious idea was successful and what fate awaited the Kola well.

Why did the USSR need a "trip to the center of the Earth"

Back in the 50s of the twentieth century, most of the material about the structure of the Earth was theoretical. Everything changed in the early 60s and 70s, when the United States and the Soviet Union began a new version of the "space race" - a race to the center of the Earth, so to speak.

The Kola Superdeep Well was a unique project funded by the USSR and then Russia from 1970 to 1995. It was drilled not at all for the extraction of "black gold" or "blue fuel", but purely for research purposes.

• First of all, Soviet scientists were interested in whether the assumption about the structure of the lower (granite and basalt) layers of the earth's crust would be confirmed.
• They also wanted to find and explore the boundaries between these layers and the mantle - one of the "engines" that ensure the constant evolution of the planet.
• During this period, geologists and geophysicists had only circumstantial evidence of what was happening in the earth's crust, and a superdeep well was needed to better understand the processes underlying geology. Moreover, the most reliable way is direct observation.

The drilling site was chosen in the northeastern part of the Baltic shield. There are poorly studied igneous rocks, the age of which is supposed to be three billion years. And on the territory of the Kola Peninsula there is a Pechenga structure, shaped like a bowl. There are deposits of copper and nickel. One of the tasks of the scientists was to study the process of ore formation.

Even to this day, the information gathered by this project is still being analyzed and interpreted.

Features of drilling an ultra-deep well

For the first four years, while driving to a depth of 7263 meters, a standard drilling rig called Uralmash-4E was used. But then her capabilities were not enough.

Therefore, the researchers decided to use the powerful Uralmash-15000 installation with a 46-meter turbodrill. It rotated due to the pressure of the drilling fluid.

The Uralmash-15000 unit was designed so that samples of the mined rock were collected in a core receiver - a pipe passing through all sections of the drill. The crushed rock fell to the surface together with the drilling fluid.This gave geologists the latest information about the well composition as the rig went deeper and deeper.

As a result, several boreholes were drilled, which branched out from one central well. The deepest branch was named SG-3.

As one of the scientists at the Kola Hydroelectric Power Station said: “Every time we start drilling, we find the unexpected. It's exciting and disturbing at the same time. "

Granite, granite everywhere

The first surprise the drillers encountered was the absence of the so-called basalt layer at a depth of about 7 km. Previously, the most relevant geological information about the deeper parts of the earth's crust came from the analysis of seismic waves. And proceeding from it, scientists expected to find a granite layer, and as it deepened, a basalt layer. But, to their great surprise, when they moved deeper into the bowels of the Earth, they found more granite there, and did not reach the basalt layer at all. All drilling took place in the granite layer.

This is extremely important, since it is associated with the theory of the layer-by-layer structure of the Earth. And with it, in turn, are associated ideas about how minerals arise and are located.

How Soviet Scientists Got Drilled to Hell

The Kola superdeep well is a source of not only the most valuable knowledge, but also a terrible urban legend.

Having reached a depth of 14.5 thousand meters, the drillers allegedly found voids. Having lowered equipment that can withstand extremely high temperatures, they found that the temperature in the voids reaches 1100 degrees Celsius. And the microphone, before melting, recorded 17-second audio, which was immediately dubbed "the sounds of hell." They were the screams of damned souls.

The first appearance of this story was recorded in 1989, and its first large-scale publication took place on the American television network Trinity Broadcasting Network. And she borrowed material from a Finnish Christian publication called Ammennusastia.

The story was then widely reprinted in small Christian publications, newsletters, etc., but received little publicity from the mainstream media. Some evangelicals have cited this incident as proof of the existence of a physical hell.

• People familiar with the principles of acoustic borehole testing just laughed at this bike. Indeed, in this case, sonic logging probes are used, which catch the wave pattern of reflected elastic vibrations.
• Maximum depth of SG-3 - 12,262 meters... It is deeper than even the deepest part of the ocean - the Challenger Abyss (10,994 meters).
• The highest temperature in it did not rise above 220 C.

• And one more important fact: it is unlikely that a microphone or drilling equipment could withstand the hellish heat above a thousand degrees.

In 1992, the American newspaper Weekly World News published an alternative version of the story, which took place in Alaska, where 13 miners were killed after Satan broke free from hell.

If you are interested in this legend, then on Youtube you can easily find videos with relevant investigations. Just don't take them too seriously, some (if not all) of the audio of the supposedly screaming sufferers in the Underworld comes from the 1972 film Baron Blood.

What scientists found at the bottom of the Kola superdeep well

• First, water was found at a depth of 9 km. It was believed that she simply should not exist at this depth - and yet she was there. Now we understand that even in deeply buried granite, cracks can form and fill with water. Technically speaking, water is just hydrogen and oxygen atoms displaced by tremendous pressure caused by depth and trapped in the rock layers.

• Second, the researchers reported the extraction of mud that was "boiling with hydrogen." Such a large amount of hydrogen at great depths was completely unexpected.
• Thirdly, the bottom of the Kola well turned out to be incredibly hot - 220 ° C.
• Undoubtedly the biggest surprise was the discovery of life.At a depth of over 6,000 meters, microscopic plankton fossils have been found there for three billion years. In total, about 24 ancient species of microorganisms have been discovered that somehow survived the extreme pressure and high temperatures below the earth's surface. This has raised many questions about the potential survival of life forms at great depths. Modern research has shown that life can even exist in the oceanic crust, but at the time the discovery of these fossils came as a shock.

Despite all the efforts of the drillers and decades of hard work, the Kola superdeep borehole covered only 0.18% of the way to the center of the Earth. Scientists believe that the distance to it is about 6400 kilometers.

Abandoned but not forgotten

Currently, SG-3 has neither personnel nor equipment. This is one of the most interesting abandoned objects of the USSR times... And only a rusty hatch in the ground reminds of the grandiose project entered in the Guinness Book of Records as the deepest human invasion of the planet's crust.

The project was closed in 1995 due to (you guessed it) lack of funding. Even earlier, in 1992, drilling operations in the well were curtailed, as geologists faced higher than expected temperatures - 220 degrees. Heat damages equipment. And the higher the temperature, the harder it is to drill. It's like trying to create and hold a hole in the center of a pot of hot soup.

By 2008, the research and production center operating at the well was completely abolished. And all drilling and research equipment was disposed of.

Results of work

The valiant efforts of the participants of the Kola Geological Survey lasted for several decades. However, the ultimate goal - the mark of 15 thousand meters - was never achieved. But the work done in the USSR, and then in Russia, provided a lot of information about what lies right below the earth's surface, and it still remains scientifically useful.

• Unique equipment and technology of ultra-deep drilling have been developed and successfully tested.
• Valuable information was obtained about what the rocks are made of and what properties they have at different depths.
• At a depth of 1.6-1.8 km, copper-nickel deposits of industrial importance were found.
• The theoretical picture expected at 5000 meters has not been confirmed. No basalts were found either in this or in deeper sections of the well. But unexpectedly they discovered not too strong rocks called granite-gneisses.
• Gold was found in the interval from 9 to 12 thousand meters. However, they did not begin to extract it from such a depth - it is unprofitable.

• Changes were made to the theory of the thermal regime of the earth's interior.
• It turned out that the origin of 50% of the heat flux is associated with the decay of radioactive substances.

SG-3 has revealed many secrets to geologists. And at the same time it gave rise to many questions that still remain unanswered. Perhaps, some of them will be given during the operation of other superdeep wells.

The deepest wells on Earth (table)