One of the most ambitious projects of the Soviet era was the Kola superdeep well with a depth of 12,262 meters. This record remains unsurpassed to this day.
Year of issue: 2012
A country: Russia (TV "Center")
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 00:25:21
Director: Vladimir Batrakov
Description: The authors of the report will talk about the history and goals of this bold scientific experiment, talk with its direct participants, and explain the results obtained in a popular form. Viewers will be able to see the current state of the rig.
Drilling began in 1970, and until the mid-80s the work was completely classified.
In 1992, drilling was stopped due to lack of funding - the well was never completed to the planned depth of 15 kilometers. But even at the existing depth, unique scientific data were obtained.
In addition, it is with the Kola superdeep well that the legend is connected about the sounds of eerie human screams allegedly recorded at great depths, which caused the most incredible assumptions in the press...
Additional Information:
Digging to Beelzebub: In the 1970s, a team of Soviet researchers carried out drilling operations on the Kola Peninsula, resulting in the deepest well in the world. The large-scale project was conceived for research purposes, but unexpectedly led to almost hysteria around the world. According to rumors, Soviet scientists have stumbled upon the “road to hell,” writes SPIEGEL ONLINE.
“A chilling picture: in the middle of the depopulated expanses of the Kola Peninsula, 150 km north of Murmansk, an abandoned drilling rig rises. Barracks for employees and rooms with laboratories are crowded around. A thick layer of dust has covered every last trace of a person’s presence, apparently leaving these places in a hurry,” - the author continues.
On May 24, 1970, when the USSR and the USA were racing to explore space, a project to drill an ultra-deep well at the location of the geological Baltic Shield was launched in the Soviet Union on the border with Finland and Norway. Over the course of several decades, the Kola superdeep well “swallowed” millions, allowing scientists to make several rather serious scientific discoveries. However, the most high-profile discovery at a depth of over 10 km turned the research project into an event with deeply religious overtones, in which guesswork, truth and lies were mixed together, giving rise to sensational reports in all the world's media.
Soon after the start of drilling, the Kola Superdeep became a Soviet model project; within a few years, SG-3 broke the record of 9583 m, previously held by the Burt-Rogers well in Oklahoma. But this was not enough for the Soviet leadership - scientists had to reach a depth of 15 km.
“On the way to the bowels of the earth, scientists made unexpected discoveries: for example, they were able to predict earthquakes based on unusual sounds from a well. At a depth of 3 thousand meters, a substance was discovered in the layers of the lithosphere, almost identical to material from the surface of the Moon. After 6 thousand meters it was gold was discovered. However, scientists became increasingly concerned that the deeper they penetrated, the higher the temperatures became, making progress difficult," the article says. Unlike preliminary calculations, the temperature was not 100 degrees Celsius, but 180.
Around the same time, rumors spread that at a depth of 14 km the drill was suddenly moving from side to side - a sign that it had fallen into a giant cavity. Temperatures in the passage zone went over a thousand degrees, and after a heat-resistant microphone was lowered into the mine to record the sound of the movement of lithospheric plates, the drillers heard chilling sounds. At first they mistook them for the sounds of malfunctioning equipment, but then, after the equipment was adjusted, their worst suspicions were confirmed. The sounds were reminiscent of the screams and groans of thousands of martyrs, the article says.
“Where exactly this legend takes its origins is still unknown,” the author continues. It was first broadcast in English in 1989 on the American television company Trinity Broadcasting Network, which took the story from a Finnish newspaper report. The Kola superdeep well began to be called “the road to hell.” The stories of frightened drillers were published in Finnish and Swedish newspapers - they claimed that “the Russians released a demon from hell.”
Drilling work was stopped - they were explained by insufficient funding. According to instructions from above, the drilling rig should have been toppled - but there was not enough money for this either.
27.04.2011
Kola superdeep well(SG-3) - recognized as the deepest borehole in the world. The mine is located on the territory of the geological Baltic shield in the Murmansk region, 10 km west of the city of Zapolyarny. Its total depth is 12,262 meters.
Its main difference from other superdeep wells that were drilled for gas, oil or geological exploration is that the Kola superdeep well was built exclusively for scientific research of the lithosphere in the place where the Mohorovicic boundary comes closest to the surface of the Earth.
SG-3 record well
The first stage of drilling the SG-3 well, the Kola superdeep well, has been completed. It was started in May 1970 and by the beginning of 1975 it had gone 7,263 meters into the depths.
Is this a lot? Or does drilling to such depth no longer surprise anyone? In Ukraine, the Shevchenkovskaya-1 well was drilled to a depth of more than 7,500 meters.
Ten wells in different places of the Soviet Union exceeded 6 thousand meters. The deepest well in the world was drilled in the USA - 9583 meters. In such an environment, the Kola Superdeep seems ordinary, one of many superdeep.
- Firstly, because this well is so far the deepest in the world drilled in Precambrian crystalline rocks.
- Secondly, the Kola superdeep well is a new word in drilling technology. For the first time in world practice, a significant part of the well was drilled with an “open hole”, that is, without casing pipes.
Every meter of the well along its entire length was carefully studied, every column of extracted rock was examined.
The thickness of the earth's crust varies. Under the ocean it thins out to 5 kilometers in some places.
On continents in areas of ancient folding it is 20-30, and under mountain ranges up to 75 kilometers. The earth's crust is called the skin of the planet.
Sometimes, in order to more figuratively show the deep structure of the Earth, a comparison with an egg is made. In this case, the bark plays the role of a shell.
Despite this seemingly insignificant thickness, the “shell” of the Earth has so far remained inaccessible to direct research.
Basic information about it was obtained indirectly—by geophysical methods. For example, based on reflected seismic waves, it has been established that the earth’s crust has a layered structure.
The continental crust consists of sedimentary, granite and basalt layers; the oceanic crust does not have a granite layer.
Below the earth's crust, seismic observations identified the mantle (if we continue the comparison with an egg - the white), and in the center of the Earth the core - the yolk.
To study the depths of the earth, gravimetric, magnetometric, nuclear, and geothermal methods are also used. They make it possible to determine the density of rocks at great depths, establish gravity anomalies, magnetic field characteristics, temperature and dozens of other parameters.
Yet many basic geological questions remain unanswered. Only direct penetration into the subsoil will finally help remove these question marks of geology.
Kola superdeep
The Kola superdeep is located on the Baltic crystalline shield. This is the oldest formation of the earth’s crust, which in the Scandinavian and Kola Peninsulas, Karelia, the Baltic Sea and part of the Leningrad region comes close to the earth’s surface.
It can be assumed that the basalt layer here lies at a depth of just over 7 kilometers. The shield is composed of ancient, highly altered rocks: Archean gneisses, crystalline schists, intrusive rocks up to 3.5 billion years old or more.
Scientists will have access to deep substance, will be able to study it in detail, conduct observations along the entire borehole, build a real, and not an assumed, continental-type section of the earth's crust, and determine the composition and physical state of the substance.
About half the way to the projected 15-kilometer mark has been completed. And even this seemingly modest intermediate result turned out to be very interesting in a number of important indicators.
For the first time in world science and practice, a well penetrated and studied in detail the thickness of not young sedimentary deposits, but ancient crystalline rocks; for the first time, it was possible to collect a lot of new information about these rocks and the geological and physical conditions of their occurrence.
By promptly creating and applying various technical innovations, continuously improving drilling technology and adapting it to specific geological conditions, Soviet scientists and drillers, using domestic equipment and tools, paved more than seven kilometers of passage in the hardest rocks of the earth.
The path into the bowels of the Earth, in a certain sense, has become the road of technical progress in drilling: what has proven itself well in drilling wells in other areas is being tested and improved, new technical means and technology are being created and tested.
The Kola Superdeep has become an experimental site testing new equipment and technology for drilling operations. The role of the general designer and scientific director of this unique test site has been entrusted to our All-Union Order of the Red Banner of Labor Scientific Research Institute of Drilling Equipment (VNIIBT) of the Ministry of Oil Industry.
Well to hell
The drilling of the Kola superdeep well served as a source of rumors associated with the emergence of the legend of the “road to hell”.
The primary source of information (1989) was the American television company Trinity Broadcasting Network, which, in turn, took the story from a report by a Finnish newspaper. Allegedly, while drilling a well at a depth of 12 thousand meters, the scientists’ microphones recorded screams and moans.
The Kola superdeep well immediately received the name “the road to hell” - and every new kilometer drilled brought misfortune to the country. At a depth of 13,000 meters, the USSR collapsed, at a depth of 14,500 meters, scientists stumbled upon voids.
The researchers lowered the microphone into the shaft and heard strange, terrifying sounds and even human screams. The sensors showed a temperature of 1100 °C. Scientists decided that they had discovered hell.
In fact, acoustic methods for studying wells record not the sound itself and not on a microphone, but the wave pattern of reflected elastic vibrations to geophones.
The drilling stop depth was 12,262 meters and the temperature recorded at this depth was only 220 °C, which in no way corresponds to the main “facts” of the legend.
Kola Superdeep: the last fireworks
Sounds of the underground - secrets of the deepest well (TC "Vesti")
Kola superdeep hellish deception
There is a creepy story about how Soviet drillers drilled into the ground so deep that they reached all the way to hell. They lowered a microphone into the well and recorded the cries of the sinners. Recently, interest in such a supernatural achievement of science flared up with renewed vigor - the recording itself appeared. The sounds really resemble the roar of a crowd, singing, and some squeaking screams can be heard.
The story features a certain “Dmitry Azzakov”, to whom everyone refers. But numerous attempts to find this man led nowhere. Our further investigation showed that the surname itself appeared in print back in 1989. We found it in the Finnish newspaper Ammenusastia (a Christian monthly in the Levasjoki region). It is possible that this is the original source. There, Dr. “Azzakov,” a Soviet geologist, stated the following: “As a communist, I do not believe in heaven and the Bible, but as a scientist, I am now forced to believe in hell. Needless to say, we were shocked to make this discovery. But we know what we heard and what we saw. And we are absolutely sure that we drilled through the gates of hell.”
From the newspaper it followed that the drama allegedly broke out in the USSR when geologists conducting research in Western Siberia reached a depth of 14.4 km. Suddenly, the drill bit began to spin wildly, revealing that there was a void or cave below. When the scientists raised the drill, a fanged, clawed creature with huge evil eyes appeared from the well, squealing like a wild animal, and disappeared. Frightened, most of the workers and engineers ran away, and the rest had to undergo no less a test.
“We lowered a microphone into the well, designed to record the movement of lithospheric plates,” Azzakov further said. - But instead we heard a loud human voice, which sounded pain. At first we thought that the sound was coming from the drilling equipment, but when we checked it carefully, our worst suspicions were confirmed. The screams and screams did not come from one person. These were the screams and moans of millions of people. Fortunately, we recorded the terrifying sounds on tape.”
And by June 1990, they had drilled here to 12,260 meters. Now the work has been stopped, but then geologists did not hear about any hell.
In the end, it turned out that both stories were launched by the Norwegian Age Rendalin, who liked to call himself “special adviser to the Norwegian Minister of Justice.” When they became interested in him, it turned out that he was just a school teacher with an overdeveloped imagination.
He admitted that he made it all up to test how seriously the Christian press verified its publications. The audio recording, of course, was made by someone else today in order to somehow stir up interest in the old fake.
The Kola superdeep well is the deepest borehole in the world (from 1979 to 2008). It is located in the Murmansk region, 10 kilometers west of the city of Zapolyarny, on the territory of the geological Baltic shield. Its depth is 12,262 meters. Unlike other ultra-deep wells that were made for oil production or geological exploration, SG-3 was drilled solely to study the lithosphere in the place where the Mohorovicic boundary is. (abbreviated Moho boundary) is the lower boundary of the earth’s crust, at which there is an abrupt increase in the velocities of longitudinal seismic waves.
The Kola superdeep well was laid in honor of the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s birth, in 1970. Sedimentary rock strata by that time had been well studied during oil production. It was more interesting to drill where volcanic rocks about 3 billion years old (for comparison: the age of the Earth is estimated at 4.5 billion years) come to the surface. To extract minerals, such rocks are rarely drilled deeper than 1-2 km. It was assumed that already at a depth of 5 km the granite layer would be replaced by a basalt one. On June 6, 1979, the well broke the record of 9583 meters, previously held by the Bertha-Rogers well (an oil well in Oklahoma). In the best years, 16 research laboratories worked at the Kola superdeep well, they were personally supervised by the Minister of Geology of the USSR.
Although it was expected that a clear boundary between granites and basalts would be discovered, only granites were found in the core throughout the entire depth. However, due to the high pressure, the compressed granites greatly changed their physical and acoustic properties. As a rule, the lifted core crumbled from active gas release into slurry, since it could not withstand a sharp change in pressure. It was possible to remove a strong piece of core only with a very slow lifting of the drill, when the “excess” gas, still pressed to high pressure, managed to escape from the rock. The density of cracks at great depths, contrary to expectations, increased. There was also water at depth that filled the cracks.
It is interesting that when the International Geological Congress was held in Moscow in 1984, at which the first results of research on the well were presented, many scientists jokingly proposed to immediately bury it, since it destroys all ideas about the structure of the earth’s crust. Indeed, strange things began even in the first stages of penetration. For example, theorists, even before the start of drilling, promised that the temperature of the Baltic shield would remain relatively low to a depth of at least 5 kilometers, the ambient temperature exceeded 70 degrees Celsius, at seven - over 120 degrees, and at a depth of 12 it was hot stronger than 220 degrees - 100 degrees 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.
“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 12,262 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 at 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.
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. 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. By the way, the Americans, who brought half a ton of soil from the Moon, did nothing meaningful with it. They were placed in airtight containers and left for research by future generations.
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 layer, 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. But, what is most surprising, at even greater depths, where there are no longer sedimentary rocks, natural methane gas was found in huge concentrations. This completely and completely destroyed the theory of the biological origin of hydrocarbons such as oil and gas
Not only scientific sensations, but also mysterious legends were also associated with the Kola well, most of which turned out to be fictions of journalists when verified. According to one of them, the primary source of information (1989) was the American television company Trinity Broadcasting Network, which, in turn, took the story from a report by a Finnish newspaper. Allegedly, when drilling a well, at a depth of 12 thousand meters, the scientists' microphones recorded screams and moans.) Journalists, without even thinking that it was simply impossible to insert a microphone to such a depth (what kind of sound recording device can work at temperatures above two hundred degrees?) wrote that the drillers heard a “voice from the underworld.”
After these publications, the Kola superdeep well began to be called “the road to hell,” claiming that every new kilometer drilled brought misfortune to the country. They said that when the drillers were drilling the thirteenth thousand meters, the USSR collapsed. Well, when the well was drilled to a depth of 14.5 km (which actually did not happen), they suddenly came across unusual voids. Intrigued by this unexpected discovery, the drillers sent down a microphone capable of operating at extremely high temperatures and other sensors. The temperature inside allegedly reached 1,100 °C - there was the heat of fiery chambers, in which human screams could allegedly be heard.
This legend still roams the vast expanses of the Internet, having outlived the very culprit of these gossips - the Kola well. Work on it was stopped back in 1992 due to lack of funding. Until 2008, it was in a mothballed state. A year later, the final decision was made to abandon the continuation of research and to dismantle the entire research complex and “bury” the well. The final abandonment of the well occurred in the summer of 2011.
So, as you can see, this time scientists were not able to get to the mantle and examine it. However, this does not mean that the Kola well did not give anything to science - on the contrary, it turned all their ideas about the structure of the earth’s crust upside down.
RESULTS
The objectives set in the ultra-deep drilling project have been completed. Special equipment and technology for ultra-deep drilling, as well as for studying wells drilled to great depths, have been developed and created. We received information, one might say, “first-hand” about the physical state, properties and composition of rocks in their natural occurrence and from core to a depth of 12,262 m. The well gave an excellent gift to the homeland at shallow depths - in the range of 1.6-1. 8 kilometers. Industrial copper-nickel ores were opened there - a new ore horizon was discovered. And it comes in handy, because the local nickel plant is already running short of ore.
As noted above, the geological forecast of the well section did not come true. The picture that was expected during the first 5 km in the well extended for 7 km, and then completely unexpected rocks appeared. The basalts predicted at a depth of 7 km were not found, even when they dropped to 12 km. It was expected that the boundary that gives the greatest reflection during seismic sounding is the level where the granites transform into a more durable basalt layer. In reality, it turned out that less strong and less dense fractured rocks are located there - Archean gneisses. This was never expected. And this is fundamentally new geological and geophysical information, which allows us to interpret the data of deep geophysical research differently.
The data on the process of ore formation in the deep layers of the earth’s crust also turned out to be unexpected and fundamentally new. Thus, at depths of 9-12 km, highly porous fractured rocks were encountered, saturated with highly mineralized underground waters. These waters are one of the sources of ore formation. Previously, it was believed that this was possible only at much shallower depths. It was in this interval that an increased gold content was found in the core - up to 1 g per 1 ton of rock (a concentration considered suitable for industrial development). But will it ever be profitable to mine gold from such depths?
Ideas about the thermal regime of the earth's interior and the deep distribution of temperatures in areas of basalt shields have also changed. At a depth of more than 6 km, a temperature gradient of 20°C per 1 km was obtained instead of the expected (as in the upper part) 16°C per 1 km. It was revealed that half of the heat flow is of radiogenic origin.
The depths of the earth contain as many mysteries as the vast expanses of the Universe. This is exactly what some scientists think, and they are partly right, because people still don’t know exactly what is under our feet, deep underground. Over the entire existence of earthly civilization, we have been able to go deeper into the planet a little more than 10 kilometers. This record was set back in 1990 and lasted until 2008, after which it was updated several times. In 2008, Maersk Oil BD-04A, a 12,290 meter long inclined oil well, was drilled (Al Shaheen oil basin in Qatar). In January 2011, an inclined oil well with a depth of 12,345 meters was drilled at the Odoptu-Sea field (Sakhalin-1 project). The record for drilling depth currently belongs to the Z-42 well of the Chayvinskoye field, the depth of which is 12,700 meters.
In 1970, right on Lenin’s 100th birthday, Soviet scientists began one of the most ambitious projects of our time. On the Kola Peninsula, ten kilometers from the village of Zapolyarny, drilling of a well began, which as a result turned out to be the deepest in the world and entered the Guinness Book of Records.
The grandiose scientific project has been going on for more than twenty years. It brought a lot of interesting discoveries, went down in the history of science, and in the end acquired so many legends, rumors and gossip that it would be enough for more than one horror film.
Entrance to hell
During its heyday, the drilling site on the Kola Peninsula was a cyclopean structure the height of a 20-story building. Up to three thousand people worked here per shift. The team was led by the country's leading geologists. The drilling rig was built in the tundra ten kilometers from the village of Zapolyarny, and in the polar night it shone with lights like a spaceship.
When all this splendor suddenly closed and the lights went out, rumors immediately began to spread. By any measure, the drilling was extraordinarily successful. No one in the world has ever managed to reach such a depth - Soviet geologists lowered the drill more than 12 kilometers.
The sudden end of a successful project seemed as absurd as the fact that the Americans closed the program of flights to the Moon. Aliens were blamed for the collapse of the lunar project. There are devils and demons in the problems of the Kola Superdeep.
© vk.com
A popular legend says that the drill was repeatedly pulled out from great depths melted. There were no physical reasons for this - the temperature underground did not exceed 200 degrees Celsius, and the drill was designed for a thousand degrees. Then the audio sensors allegedly began to pick up some moans, screams and sighs. Dispatchers monitoring instrument readings complained of feelings of panic and anxiety.
According to legend, it turned out that geologists had drilled to hell. The groans of sinners, extremely high temperatures, the atmosphere of horror at the drilling rig - all this explained why all work on the Kola superdeep was suddenly curtailed.
Many were skeptical about these rumors. However, in 1995, after work had stopped, a powerful explosion occurred at the drilling rig. No one understood what could explode there, not even the leader of the entire project, the prominent geologist David Guberman.
Today, excursions are taken to the abandoned drilling rig and tourists are told a fascinating story about how scientists drilled a hole into the underground kingdom of the dead. It’s as if moaning ghosts roam around the installation, and in the evening demons crawl to the surface and strive to whisk the unwary extreme sportsman into the abyss.
© wikimedia.org
Underground Moon
In fact, the whole “well to hell” story was invented by Finnish journalists by April 1st. Their comic article was republished by American newspapers, and the duck flew to the masses. The long-term drilling of the Kola superdeep reservoir proceeded without any mysticism. But what happened there in reality was more interesting than any legends.
To begin with, ultra-deep drilling was doomed to numerous accidents. Under the yoke of enormous pressure (up to 1000 atmospheres) and high temperatures, the drills could not withstand, the well became clogged, and the pipes used to strengthen the vent broke. Countless times the narrow well was bent so that more and more branches had to be drilled.
The worst accident occurred shortly after the main triumph of geologists. In 1982, they were able to overcome the 12 kilometer mark. These results were solemnly announced in Moscow at the International Geological Congress. Geologists from all over the world were brought to the Kola Peninsula, they were shown a drilling rig and rock samples mined at fantastic depths that humanity had never reached before.
© youtube.com
After the celebration, drilling continued. However, the break in work turned out to be fatal. In 1984, the worst drilling accident occurred. As many as five kilometers of pipes came loose and clogged the well. It was impossible to continue drilling. Five years of work were lost overnight.
We had to resume drilling from the 7-kilometer mark. Only in 1990 did geologists again manage to cross 12 kilometers. 12,262 meters - this is the final depth of the Kola well.
But parallel to the terrible accidents, there were also incredible discoveries. Deep drilling is like a time machine. On the Kola Peninsula, the oldest rocks approach the surface, their age exceeding 3 billion years. By going deeper, scientists have gained a clear understanding of what happened on our planet during its youth.
First of all, it turned out that the traditional diagram of the geological section compiled by scientists does not correspond to reality. “Up to 4 kilometers everything went according to theory, and then the end of the world began,” Huberman later said
According to calculations, by drilling through a layer of granite, it was supposed to get to even harder, basaltic rocks. But there was no basalt. After the granite came loose layered rocks, which constantly crumbled and made it difficult to move deeper.
© youtube.com
But among rocks 2.8 billion years old, fossilized microorganisms were found. This made it possible to clarify the time of the origin of life on Earth. At even greater depths, huge deposits of methane were found. This clarified the issue of the emergence of hydrocarbons - oil and gas.
And at a depth of over 9 kilometers, scientists discovered a gold-bearing olivine layer, so vividly described by Alexei Tolstoy in “The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin.”
But the most fantastic discovery occurred in the late 1970s, when the Soviet lunar station brought back samples of lunar soil. Geologists were amazed to see that its composition completely coincided with the composition of the rocks they mined at a depth of 3 kilometers. How was this possible?
The fact is that one of the hypotheses for the origin of the Moon suggests that several billion years ago the Earth collided with some celestial body. As a result of the collision, a piece broke off from our planet and turned into a satellite. Perhaps this piece came off in the area of the current Kola Peninsula.
© vk.com
The final
So why did they close the Kola superdeep pipeline?
Firstly, the main objectives of the scientific expedition were completed. Unique equipment for drilling at great depths was created, tested under extreme conditions and significantly improved. The collected rock samples were examined and described in detail. The Kola well helped to better understand the structure of the earth's crust and the history of our planet.
Secondly, time itself was not conducive to such ambitious projects. In 1992, funding for the scientific expedition was cut off. The employees quit and went home. But even today the grandiose building of the drilling rig and the mysterious well are impressive in their scale.
Sometimes it seems that the Kola Superdeep has not yet exhausted the entire supply of its wonders. The head of the famous project was also sure of this. “We have the deepest hole in the world - so we must use it!” - exclaimed David Huberman.
In 2008, the deepest well in the world was finally abandoned, and all lifting mechanisms and structures were dismantled.
A couple of years later, the director of the Kola Geological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences issued a statement that the well was gradually self-destructing. Since that time, there is no more official information about her.
Well depth today
As of today, the Kola well is one of the largest drilling projects in the world. Its official depth reaches 12,262 m.
Sounds of Hell from the Kola Well
Like any grandiose project created by human hands, the Kola well is shrouded in legends and myths.
The Kola well was drilled intermittently from 1970 to 1991This can be seen both in the Mariana Trench (), which we talked about at the beginning of the article, and in.
They say that at the moment when the workers of the deepest well crossed the 12,000 m mark, eerie sounds began to be heard.
Initially, no attention was paid to them, but over time the situation changed dramatically. With the onset of complete silence, sounds of various types were heard from the well.
As a result, scientists decided to record on film everything that happened at the bottom of the well using heat-resistant microphones.
While listening to the recordings, we were able to hear human screams and screams.
A couple of hours after studying the film, scientists discovered traces of a strong explosion, the cause of which they could not explain.
Drilling of the Kola superdeep well was suspended for some time.
When work resumed, everyone still expected to hear human groans, but this time everything was quiet.
Suspecting something was wrong, management began an investigation into the origin of the strange sounds. However, the frightened workers did not want to comment on the current situation and in every possible way avoided any questions.
Several years later, when the project was officially frozen, scientists suggested that the sounds arose due to movement.
After some time, this explanation was rejected as untenable. No other explanation was offered.
Secrets and mysteries of the Kola well
In 1989, the Kola well began to be called “the road to the underworld” because of the sounds coming from it. There is an opinion that with each successive kilometer drilled, on the way to the 13th, one or another cataclysms occurred. As a result, the Soviet Union collapsed.
However, the relationship between the drilling of the Kola superdeep well and the collapse of a superpower may only be of interest to those who believe that , and others are supernatural “places of power.”
There is an opinion that the workers managed to reach a depth of 14.5 km, and it was then that the equipment recorded some underground rooms. The temperature in these rooms exceeded 1000°C.
Human screams were also clearly audible and even recorded. However, this whole story is not supported by facts.
Dimensions of the deepest well
The depth of the world's deepest well on the Kola Peninsula is officially registered at 12,262 m.
The diameter of the upper part is 92 cm, the diameter of the lower part is 21.5 cm.
In this case, the maximum temperature did not exceed 220 °C. In this whole story, only sounds of unknown origin remain inexplicable.
The benefits of drilling the Kola well
- Thanks to this project, it was possible to achieve new drilling methods, as well as improve equipment.
- Geologists were able to discover new locations of valuable minerals.
- It was possible to debunk many different theories, for example, guesses regarding the basalt layer of our planet.
The world's ultra-deep wells
As of today, there are approximately 25 ultra-deep wells, the bulk of which are located in the republics of the former USSR.
Others also have a number of ultra-deep wells. Here are the most famous among them.
- . Silyan Ring – 6800 m.
- . Tasym South-East – 7050 m.
- . Bighorn – 7583 m.
- . Zisterdorf – 8553 m.
- USA. University – 8686 m.
- Germany. KTB-Oberpfalz – 9101 m.
- USA. Beydat-Unit – 9159 m.
- USA. Bertha Rogers - 9583 m.
World records for ultra-deep wells in the world
- In 2008, the new record holder for depth was the Maersk oil well (Qatar) with a depth of 12,290 m.
- In 2011, during a project called “Sakhalin-1” (), it was possible to drill a well to an elevation of 12,345 m.
- In 2013, a well at the Chayvinskoye field (Russia) set a new record of 12,700 m. However, it was not drilled vertically downwards, but at an angle to the surface.
Photo of the Kola well
Looking at the photo of the Kola well, it is difficult to imagine that life was once in full swing here, and many people worked for the benefit of a great country.
Now there is nothing here except garbage and remnants of its former greatness. Reinforced concrete walls and empty, abandoned rooms with randomly scattered things are depressing. There is silence all around.
First stage drilling rig (depth 7600 m), 1974 
Electrical substation building 
Photo from 2012 
Wellhead with a metal plug. Someone scratched the wrong depth. August 2012 
It’s hard to imagine that under this plug there is the deepest “hole” in the ground, going more than 12 km deep 
Soviet workers at shift change, late 1970s Stories related to the Kola well have not subsided to this day. At present, scientists have not given a definitive answer about the origin of mystical sounds.
In this regard, new theories are emerging that try to explain this phenomenon. Perhaps in the near future, scientists will be able to find out the nature of the “hell sounds”.
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The deepest wells in the world March 18th, 2015
The dream of penetrating into the depths of our planet, along with plans to send a person into space, seemed absolutely impossible for many centuries. In the 13th century, the Chinese were already digging wells up to 1,200 meters deep, and with the advent of drilling rigs in the 1930s, Europeans managed to penetrate to a depth of three kilometers, but these were only scratches on the body of the planet.
As a global project, the idea to drill into the upper shell of the Earth appeared in the 1960s. Hypotheses about the structure of the mantle were based on indirect data, such as seismic activity. And the only way to literally look into the bowels of the earth was to drill ultra-deep wells. Hundreds of wells on the surface and in the depths of the ocean have provided answers to some of the scientists' questions, but the days when they were used to test a variety of hypotheses are long gone.
Let's remember the list of the deepest wells on earth...
Siljan Ring (Sweden, 6800 m)
At the end of the 80s in Sweden, a well of the same name was drilled in the Siljan Ring crater. According to the scientists’ hypothesis, it was in that place that natural gas deposits of non-biological origin were expected to be found. The drilling result disappointed both investors and scientists. Hydrocarbons were not detected on an industrial scale.
Zistersdorf UT2A (Austria, 8553 m)
In 1977, the Zistersdorf UT1A well was drilled in the Vienna oil and gas basin, where several small oil fields were hidden. When unrecoverable gas reserves were discovered at a depth of 7,544 m, the first well suddenly collapsed, forcing OMV to drill a second. However, this time the miners did not find deep hydrocarbon resources.
Hauptbohrung (Germany, 9101 m)
The famous Kola well made an indelible impression on the European public. Many countries have begun to prepare their ultra-deep well projects, but the Hauptborung well, developed from 1990 to 1994 in Germany, is especially noteworthy. Reaching only 9 km, it has become one of the most famous ultra-deep wells thanks to the openness of drilling and scientific data.
Baden Unit (USA, 9159 m)
A well drilled by Lone Star near the city of Anadarko. Its development began in 1970 and lasted for 545 days. In total, this well required 1,700 tons of cement and 150 diamond bits. And its total cost cost the company $6 million.
Bertha Rogers (USA, 9583 m)
Another ultra-deep well created in the Anadarko oil and gas basin in Oklahoma in 1974. The entire drilling process took Lone Star workers 502 days. Work had to be stopped when miners stumbled upon a molten sulfur deposit at a depth of 9.5 kilometers.
Kola superdeep (USSR, 12,262 m)
Listed in the Guinness Book of Records as "the deepest human invasion of the earth's crust." When drilling began in May 1970 near the lake with the unpronounceable name Vilgiskoddeoaivinjärvi, it was assumed that the well would reach a depth of 15 kilometers. But due to high temperatures (up to 230°C), the work had to be curtailed. At the moment, the Kola well is mothballed.
I already told you about the history of this well -
BD-04A (Qatar, 12,289 m)
7 years ago, exploration well BD-04A was drilled in the Al-Shaheen oil field in Qatar. It is noteworthy that the Maersk drilling platform was able to reach 12 kilometers in a record 36 days!
OP-11 (Russia, 12,345 m)
January 2011 was marked by a message from Exxon Neftegas that drilling of the longest extended reach well was close to completion. OR-11, located at the Odoptu field, also set a record for the length of a horizontal wellbore - 11,475 meters. The miners were able to complete the work in just 60 days.
The total length of the OP-11 well at the Odoptu field was 12,345 meters (7.67 miles), thereby setting a new world record for drilling extended reach wells (ERR). OR-11 also ranked first in the world in terms of the horizontal distance between the bottom and the drilling point - 11,475 meters (7.13 miles). ENL completed the record-breaking well in just 60 days using ExxonMobil's high-speed drilling and integrated drilling quality control technologies, achieving the highest drilling performance in every foot of the OR-11 well.
“The Sakhalin-1 project continues to contribute to Russia's leadership in the global oil and gas industry,” said James Taylor, ENL President. — To date, 6 of the 10 longest EDS wells, including the OP-11 well, have been drilled as part of the Sakhalin-1 project using drilling technologies from ExxonMobil Corporation. The specially designed Yastreb drilling rig was used throughout the project, setting numerous industry records for hole length, drilling speed and directional drilling performance. We also set a new record while maintaining excellent safety, health and environmental performance.”
The Odoptu field, one of three fields of the Sakhalin-1 project, is located on the shelf, at a distance of 5-7 miles (8-11 km) from the north-eastern coast of Sakhalin Island. BOV technology makes it possible to successfully drill wells from the shore under the seabed to reach offshore oil and gas deposits, without violating the principles of safety and environmental protection, in one of the most difficult subarctic regions of the world to develop.
P.S. And here's what they write in the comments: tim_o_fay: let's separate the flies from the cutlets :) Long well ≠ deep. The same BD-04A, of its 12,289 m, has 10,902 m of horizontal trunk. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x150185 Accordingly, the vertical there is a kilometer or so in total. What does it mean? This means low (comparatively) pressure and temperature at the bottom, soft rocks (with a good penetration rate), etc. and so on. OP-11 from the same opera. I won’t say that drilling horizontals is easy (I’ve been doing this for eight years), but it’s still much easier than drilling super-deep ones. Bertha Rogers, SG-3 (Kola), Baden Unit and others with great true vertical depth (literal translation from English True Vertical Depth, TVD) - this is truly something transcendental. In 1985, former graduates from all over the Union came to the fiftieth anniversary of SOGRT with stories and gifts for the technical school museum. Then I was honored to touch a piece of granite gneiss from a depth of more than 11.5 km :)
