The deepest well in the world that served as the source of the legend. Well to hell: why the deepest well was stopped

In 2008, the deepest well in the world was finally abandoned, and all lifting mechanisms and the 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 is 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.

Hell sounds 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 1991

This can be seen both in the Mariana Trench, which we mentioned at the beginning of the article, and in.

They say that at the moment when the workers of the deepest well overcame the 12,000 m line, they began to hear eerie sounds.

Initially, they were not paid any attention, but over time, the situation has changed dramatically. With the onset of complete silence, sounds of a different nature were heard from the well.

As a result, the scientists decided to tape 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 the work resumed, everyone was still expecting to hear people groaning, but this time everything was quiet.

Suspecting something was wrong, the management began proceedings regarding the origin of the strange sounds. However, the frightened workers did not want to comment on the situation and in every possible way avoided any questioning.

Several years later, when the project was officially frozen, scientists have suggested that sounds were 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 next drilled kilometer, on the way to the 13th, one or another cataclysm happened. As a result, the Soviet Union collapsed.

However, the relationship between the drilling of the Kola superdeep well and the collapse of the superpower may be of interest only to those who believe that others are supernatural "places of power."

It is believed 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.

They also clearly heard and even recorded human screams. However, this whole story is not supported by the facts.

The 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. Only sounds of unknown origin remain unexplained in this whole story.

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 about the basalt layer of our planet.

World superdeep wells

As of today, there are approximately 25 superdeep wells, most of which are located in the republics of the former USSR.

Others also have a number of superdeep wells. Here are the most famous ones.

Sweden. Silyan Ring - 6800 m.
Kazakhstan. Tasym South-East - 7050 m.
USA. Bighorn - 7583 m.
Austria. Zisterdorf - 8553 m.
USA. University - 8686 m.
Germany. KTB-Oberpfalz - 9101 m.
USA. Beidat Unit - 9159 m.
USA. Bertha Rogers - 9583 m.

World records for superdeep wells in the world

In 2008, the Maersk oil well (Qatar) with a depth of 12,290 m became a new record holder in depth.
In 2011, during the project called Sakhalin-1 (), it was possible to drill a well to a mark of 12,345 m.
In 2013, the well of the Chayvinskoye field (Russia) installed new record at 12,700 m. However, it was not drilled vertically down, but at an angle to the surface.

Photos of the Kola well

Looking at the photo of the Kola well, it is difficult to imagine that once life was in full swing here, and many people worked for the good of the great country.

Now there is nothing but rubbish and remnants of the former greatness here. Reinforced concrete walls and empty, abandoned rooms with randomly scattered things act depressingly. Silence reigns all around.

Drilling rig of the first stage (depth 7600 m), 1974

Electrical substation building

2012 photo

Wellhead with a metal plug. Someone scratched out the wrong depth. August 2012

It is difficult to imagine that under this plug there is the deepest "hole" in the earth, going deeper than 12 km

Soviet workers at the shift shift, late 1970s

The stories associated with the Kola well do not subside to this day. At present, scientists have not given a final answer about the origin of mystical sounds.

In this regard, new theories appear that try to explain this phenomenon. Perhaps, in the near future, scientists will be able to find out the nature of "hellish sounds".

Now you know what makes the Kola well interesting. If you liked this article - share it with your friends. If you like it at all - subscribe to the site. InteresnyeFakty.org any in a convenient way... It's always interesting with us!

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Many scientific and industrial works are related to drilling underground wells... The total number of such objects in Russia alone is hardly quantifiable. But the legendary Kola superdeep since the 1990s remains unsurpassed, going into the Earth's thickness for more than 12 kilometers! It was drilled not for economic gain, but out of purely scientific interest - to find out what processes are taking place inside the planet.

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 V.I. Lenin. The choice of the site was not accidental - it is here, on the territory of the Baltic Shield, that the most ancient rocks emerge, which are three billion years old.

Since the end of the 19th 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 three kilometers, then basalts, and at a depth of 15-18 kilometers, the mantle begins. All this had to be tested in practice.

The underground exploration of the 1960s was like a space race - the leading countries were trying to get ahead of each other. The opinion was expressed that the richest deposits of minerals, including gold, are located at great depths.

The first superdeep wells were drilled by the Americans. In the early 1960s, their scientists figured out that the earth's crust is much thinner beneath the oceans. Therefore, an area near the island of Maui (one of the Hawaiian islands), where the earth's mantle is at a depth of about five kilometers (plus a 4-kilometer water column), was chosen as the most promising place for work. But both attempts by researchers from the United States ended in failure.

The Soviet Union needed to respond with dignity. Our researchers proposed to create a well on the continent - despite the fact that it took longer to drill, the result promised to be successful.

The project has become one of the largest in the USSR. 16 research laboratories worked at the well. It was no less difficult to get a job here than to get into the cosmonaut corps. Ordinary employees received a triple salary and an apartment in Moscow or Leningrad. Unsurprisingly, there was no staff turnover at all, and at least 50 candidates applied for each seat.

To a depth of 7263 meters, the drilling was carried out using a conventional serial installation, which was used at that time 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 the installation of a more powerful unit "Uralmash-15000", created in Sverdlovsk and called "Severyanka". In its work, the turbine principle was used - when not the entire string rotates, but only the drill head.

With each meter passed, it became more difficult to drill. Previously, it was believed that the temperature of the rock, even at a depth of 15 kilometers, will not be higher than 150 ° C. But it turned out that at a depth of eight kilometers it reached 169 ° С, and at a depth of 12 kilometers it was 220 ° С!

The equipment quickly broke down. But the work continued without stopping. The goal 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.

The 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 have gone around all the world's leading newspapers and magazines, in several countries they have published stamps.

But the main thing is that a real sensation was prepared specially for the congress. It turned out that rock samples taken at a 3-kilometer depth of the Kola well are completely identical to the lunar soil (it was first brought 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 broke away from it as a result of a cosmic catastrophe. Now it could be said that the breakaway part of our planet billions of years ago was in contact with the area of the present Kola Peninsula.

The superdeep well has become a real triumph for Soviet science. Researchers, designers, even ordinary workers honored and awarded for almost a year.

At this time, work on the Kola Superdeep was suspended. They were renewed only in September 1984. And the very first launch led to biggest accident... The employees seemed to have forgotten that changes are constantly taking place inside the underground passage. The well does not forgive the stoppage of work - and forces you to start all over again.

As a result, the drill string was broken, and five kilometers of pipes remained in the depth. 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 km mark. They came to 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 work of the well was affected by both local failures and events taking place in the country. The possibilities of the available technology were exhausted, and government funding dropped sharply. After several serious accidents, drilling was stopped in 1992.

The scientific significance of the Kola Superdeep is difficult to overestimate. First of all, the work on it confirmed the hypothesis of rich mineral deposits at great depths. Of course, no pure precious metals were found there. But at the nine kilometers mark, seams were found with a gold grade of 78 grams per tonne (active commercial production is carried out when this grade is 34 grams per tonne).

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 it was commonly thought.

It was believed that there is no and cannot be organic life at super-depths, but 14 previously unknown species of fossilized microorganisms were found in samples of soil raised to the surface, which was three billion years old.

Shortly before its closure, in 1989, the Kola Superdeep was once again in the center of international attention. The director of the well, academician David Guberman, suddenly began to call and write from all over the world. Scientists, journalists, just curious citizens were interested in the question: is it true that a superdeep well has become a "well to hell"?

It turned out that representatives of the Finnish press talked with some workers 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. Some of the employees put forward a version that these are the cries of sinners in hell.

How true are these stories? Technically, it is difficult to place a microphone instead of a drill, but it is possible. However, the work on launching it can take several weeks. And it would hardly have been possible to carry out it at a secure facility instead of drilling. But, on the other hand, many well employees did hear strange sounds that were regularly heard from the depths. And what it could be, no one knew for certain.

At the suggestion of Finnish journalists, the world press has published a number of articles claiming that the Kola Superdeep is "the road to hell." Mystical significance was also attributed to the fact that the USSR collapsed when the drillers were driving the "unlucky" thirteenth thousand meters.

In 1995, when the station was already mothballed, an incomprehensible explosion took place in the depths of the mine - if only for the reason that there was nothing to explode there. Foreign newspapers reported that a demon flew from the bowels of the Earth to the surface through the passage made by people (the publications were full of headlines such as "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 did take place, as well as strange noises resembling voices. Moreover, the survey carried out after the explosion showed that all the equipment was in perfect order.

For a long time the well was considered mothballed, with about 20 employees working on it (in the 1980s, their number exceeded 500). In 2008, the facility was completely closed and part of the equipment was dismantled. Ground part wells - a building the size of a 12-storey building, now it is abandoned and is gradually collapsing. Sometimes tourists come here, attracted by the legends of the voices from hell.

According to employees of the Kola Geological Institute scientific center RAS, which used to be in charge of the well, its restoration would have cost 100 million rubles.

But oh scientific works at a depth, it is no longer a question: on the basis of this object, you can only open an institute or other enterprise to train specialists in offshore drilling. Or create a museum - after all, the Kola well continues to be the deepest in the world.

It is no easier to penetrate the secrets that are under our feet than to learn all the secrets of the Universe above our heads. And maybe even more difficult, because in order to look into the depths of the Earth, a very deep well is needed.

The goals of drilling are different (oil production, for example), but superdeep (more than 6 km) wells are primarily needed by scientists who want to know what is interesting inside our planet. Where are such "windows" to the center of the Earth and how the deepest drilled well is called, we will tell you in this article. First, just one explanation.

Drilling can be carried out both vertically downward and at an angle to the surface of the earth. In the second case, the length can be very large, but the depth, if we estimate it from the wellhead (the beginning of the well on the surface) to the deepest point in the depths, is less than that of those that run perpendicularly.

An example is one of the wells of the Chayvo field, the length of which reached 12,700 m, but in depth it is significantly inferior to the deepest wells.

This well, 7520 m deep, is located in the territory of modern Western Ukraine. However, work on it was carried out back in the USSR in 1975-1982.

The purpose of creating this one of the deepest wells in the USSR was the extraction of minerals (oil and gas), but the study of the bowels of the earth was also an important task.

9 En-Yakhinskaya well

Not far from the town of Novy Urengoy in the Yamalo-Nenets Okrug. The purpose of drilling the Earth was to determine the composition crust at the drilling site and determine the profitability of the development of great depths for the extraction of minerals.

As is usually the case with superdeep wells, the subsoil presented the researchers with many "surprises". For example, at a depth of about 4 km, the temperature reached +125 (higher than the calculated one), and after a little more 3 km the temperature was already +210 degrees. Nevertheless, the scientists completed their studies, and in 2006 the well was abandoned.

8 Saatlinskaya in Azerbaijan

In the USSR, on the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan, one of the deepest wells in the world - Saatlinskaya - was drilled. It was planned to bring its depth to 11 km and carry out various studies related to both the structure of the earth's crust and the development of oil at different depths.

7 Zisterdorf - the deepest in Austria

Another deep well was drilled in Austria, near the town of Zisterdorf. There were oil and gas fields nearby, and geologists expected that the superdeep well would make it possible to obtain super-profits in the field of mining.

Indeed, at a very significant depth, natural gas- to the despair of the specialists, it was impossible to extract it. Further drilling ended in an accident, the walls of the well collapsed.
There was no point in restoring, they decided to drill another next to it, but nothing interesting for industrialists could be found in it.

6 University in the USA

One of the deepest wells on Earth is the University of the United States. Its depth is 8686 m.The materials obtained as a result of drilling are of considerable interest, since they give new material about the structure of the planet on which we live.

Surprisingly, as a result, it turned out that it was not the scientists who were right, but the science fiction writers: there are layers of minerals in the bowels, and life exists at great depths - however, we are talking about bacteria!

In the 90s, drilling of the Hauptborung superdeep well began in Germany. It was planned to bring its depth to 12 km, but, as is usually the case with super-deep mines, the plans were not given to be crowned with success. Already at the 7s mark small meters the problems associated with automatic machines began: drilling vertically downward became impossible, the mine began to deviate more and more to the side. Every meter was given with difficulty, and the temperature rose tremendously.

Finally, when the heat reached 270 degrees, and endless accidents and failures plagued everyone, it was decided to suspend the work. This happened at a depth of 9.1 km, making the Hauptborung well one of the deepest.

The scientific materials obtained from drilling have become the basis for thousands of studies, and the mine itself is currently used for tourism purposes.

4 Baiden Unit

In the United States, Lone Star attempted an ultra-deep well in 1970. The location near the city of Anadarko in Oklahoma was not chosen by chance: here wildlife and high scientific potential create a convenient opportunity both for drilling a well and for studying it.

The work was carried out for more than a year, and during this time they drilled to a depth of 9159 m, which makes it possible to include it among the deepest mines in the world.

Finally, here are the three deepest wells in the world. In third place is Bertha Rogers - the world's first super-deep well, which, however, did not remain the deepest for long. After only a short time, the deepest well in the USSR, the Kola, appeared.

Bertha Rogers was drilled by GHK, which develops minerals, mainly natural gas. The aim of the work was to search for gas at great depths. Work began in 1970, when very little was known about the earth's interior.

The company had high hopes for a place in Washita County, because there are many minerals in Oklahoma, and at that time scientists thought that there were whole layers of oil and gas in the earth. However, 500 days of work and huge funds invested in the project turned out to be useless: the drill melted in a layer of liquid sulfur, and gas or oil could not be found.

In addition, no scientific research was carried out during drilling, since the well was only of commercial importance.

2 KTB-Oberpfalz

In second place in our rating is the German well Oberpfalz, which reached a depth of almost 10 km.

This mine holds the record for being the deepest vertical borehole, since without deviations to the side, it goes to a depth of 7500 m! This is an unprecedented figure, because mines at great depths inevitably bend, but the unique equipment used by scientists from Germany made it possible to move the drill vertically down for a very long time.

The difference in diameter is not so great either. Superdeep wells start at the surface of the earth with a hole rather large diameter(at Oberpfalz - 71 cm), and then gradually taper. At the bottom, the German borehole has a diameter of only about 16 cm.

The reason why the work had to be stopped is the same as in all other cases - equipment failure due to high temperatures.

1 Kola well is the deepest in the world

We owe a stupid legend to the "duck" launched in the Western press, where, with reference to the mythical "world-famous scientist" Azzakov, it was told about a "creature" that escaped from a mine, the temperature in which reached 1000 degrees, about the groans of millions of people who signed up for microphone down and so on.

At first glance, it is clear that the story is sewn with white thread (and it was published, by the way, on the "fool's day"): the temperature in the mine was not higher than 220 degrees, however, with it, as at 1000 degrees, no microphone could work ; the creatures did not break out, and the named scientist does not exist.

The Kola well is the deepest in the world. Its depth reaches 12262 m, which significantly exceeds the depth of other mines. But not the length! Now, at least three wells can be named - Qatar, Sakhalin-1 and one of the wells of the Chayvo field (Z-42) - which are longer, but not deeper.
Kolskaya gave scientists colossal material, which has not yet been fully processed and comprehended.

Place	Name	The country	Depth
1	Kola	the USSR	12262
2	KTB-Oberpfalz	Germany	9900
3	USA	9583
4	Beiden Unit	USA	9159
5	Germany	9100
6	USA	8686
7	Cisterdorf	Austria	8553
8	USSR (modern Azerbaijan)	8324
9	Russia	8250
10	Shevchenkivska	USSR (Ukraine)	7520

Saturday, Dec 29 2012

One of the most ambitious projects Soviet era became the Kola superdeep well with a depth of 12,262 meters. This record remains unsurpassed to this day.

Year of issue: 2012

The country: Russia (TV "Center")

Genre: Documentary

Duration: 00:25:21

Director: Vladimir Batrakov

Description: The authors of the report will tell 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 state of the drilling rig at the moment.

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 brought to the planned depth of 15 kilometers. But even with 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 creepy human screams allegedly recorded at a great depth, which caused the most incredible assumptions in the press ...

Additional Information:

Digging to Beelzebub: In the 1970s, a team of Soviet researchers drilled the Kola Peninsula, dug 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 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 oil rig rises. Barracks for employees, rooms with laboratories are crowded around. A thick layer of dust covered all traces of the presence of a person who was apparently in a hurry to leave these places." the author continues.

On May 24, 1970, when the USSR and the USA were racing to explore space, in the Soviet Union, on the border with Finland and Norway, a project was launched to drill a superdeep well at the location of the geological Baltic shield. For several decades, the Kola superdeep well "swallowed" millions, allowing scientists to make several rather serious scientific discoveries... However, the loudest find at a depth of over 10 km turned the research project into an event with deeply religious overtones, in which guesses, truth and lies mixed together, generating sensational reports in all the world's media.

Soon after the start of drilling, the Kola Superdeep became a Soviet exemplary project, a few years later the SG-3 broke the record of 9583 m, previously owned by the Bert-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 managed to predict earthquakes on the basis of unusual sounds from the well. gold was discovered. However, scientists were increasingly worried by the fact that the deeper they penetrated, the higher the temperatures became, which made it difficult to work, "the article says. In contrast to preliminary calculations, the temperature was not 100 degrees Celsius, but 180.

Around the same time, rumors began to spread that at a depth of 14 km, the drill unexpectedly came from side to side - a sign that it had fallen into a giant cavity. The temperatures in the passage zone went off scale for a thousand degrees, and after a heat-resistant microphone was lowered into the mine to record the sound of movement 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 resembled the screams and groans of thousands of martyrs, the article says.

"Where exactly this legend takes its origins is still unknown," the author continues. For the first time in English, it was dubbed in 1989 on the air of the American television company Trinity Broadcasting Network, which took the story from the report of a Finnish newspaper. The Kola superdeep well began to be called the "road to hell". The stories of the 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. On instructions from above, the drilling rig should have been knocked down - but there was not enough money for that 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 town of Zapolyarny. Its total depth is 12,262 meters.

Its main difference from the rest of the superdeep wells, which were drilled for the production of gas, oil or geological exploration, the Kola superdeep well was built exclusively for scientific research lithosphere in the place where the boundary of Mohorovichich comes closest to the surface of the Earth.

SG-3 record well

Completed the first stage of drilling the SG-3 well - the Kola superdeep well. It was launched in May 1970 and by the beginning of 1975 had gone 7263 meters underground.

Is this a lot? Or is drilling to such a depth no longer surprising? The Shevchenkovskaya-1 well was drilled in Ukraine with a depth of more than 7,500 meters.

Ten wells in different places 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 borehole is still the deepest in the world that has been drilled in the crystalline rocks of the Precambrian.
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 "open hole", that is, without casing.

Every meter of the well has been thoroughly studied along its entire length, every column of the extracted rock has been examined.

The thickness of the earth's crust is not the same. Under the ocean, it becomes thinner in some places up to 5 kilometers.

On the 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 vividly show the deep structure of the Earth, a comparison is made with an egg. In this case, the bark is assigned the role of a shell.

Despite such a seemingly insignificant thickness, the "shell" of the Earth has so far remained inaccessible to direct research.

Basic information about it was obtained by indirect - geophysical methods. So, for example, according to the reflected seismic waves, it was found that the earth's crust has a layered structure.

The continental crust consists of sedimentary, granite and basalt layers; there is no granite layer in the oceanic crust.

Below the earth's crust, seismic observations have highlighted the mantle (if we continue the comparison with the egg - white), and in the center of the Earth, the core is the yolk.

For research of the earth's depths, gravimetric, magnetometric, nuclear, geothermal methods are also used. They allow you to determine the density rocks at great depths, to establish gravity anomalies, characteristic magnetic field, temperature and dozens of other parameters.

Yet many of the basic questions of geology remain unanswered. Only direct penetration into the bowels will help, finally, to remove these question marks geology.

Kola superdeep

The Kola superdeep was laid on the Baltic crystalline shield. This oldest education crust, which is on the territory of the Scandinavian and Kola Peninsulas, Karelia, the Baltic Sea and in part Leningrad region comes close to the earth's surface.

It can be assumed that the basalt layer here lies at a depth of a little more than 7 kilometers. The shield is composed of ancient, highly altered rocks: Archean gneisses, crystalline schists, intrusive rocks up to 3.5 billion years old and more.

Scientists will gain access to deep matter, will be able to study it in detail, conduct observations along the entire wellbore, build a real, rather than supposed, continental-type section of the earth's crust, and determine the composition and physical state of the substance.

Passed about half of the way to the design 15-kilometer mark. And even this seemingly modest intermediate result turned out to be very interesting in terms of a number of important indicators.

For the first time in world science and practice, a well has uncovered and studied in detail the stratum 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.

Promptly creating and applying various technical innovations, continuously improving the drilling technology and adapting it to specific geological conditions, Soviet scientists and drillers with domestic equipment and tools laid a more than seven-kilometer course in the hardest earth rocks.

The way into the bowels of the Earth, in a certain sense, has become the road of technical progress in drilling: what has worked well for drilling in other regions is being tested and improved, new technical means and technology are being created and tested.

The Kola Superdeep has become an experimental test 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, the Research Institute of Drilling Technology (VNIIBT) of the Ministry of Oil Industry.

Well to hell

Drilling of the Kola superdeep well was the source of rumors related to 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 Finnish newspaper report. Allegedly, while drilling a well, at a depth of 12 thousand meters, the scientists' microphones recorded screams and groans.

The Kola superdeep well was immediately named "the road to hell" - and each 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. The scientists thought they had discovered hell.

In fact, acoustic well survey methods do not record the sound itself or on the microphone, but the wave pattern of the reflected elastic vibrations for seismic receivers.

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 - the secrets of the deepest well (TC "Vesti")

Kola superdeep hellish deception

Exists creepy story about how Soviet drillers drilled the earth so deep that they got it all the way to hell. They lowered a microphone into the well and recorded the cries of sinners. Recently, interest in such a supernatural achievement of science flared up with renewed vigor - the recording itself appeared. The sounds really resemble the rumble of the crowd, singing, some screams of squeak are heard.

Someone named “Dmitry Azzakov” appears in the story, and everyone refers to him. But numerous attempts to find this person have led nowhere. Our further investigation showed that the surname itself appeared in print back in 1989. We found her in the Finnish newspaper Ammenusastia (monthly Christian Levasjoki). It is possible that this is the original source. There, Dr. "Azzakov", a Soviet geologist, declared the following: “As a communist, I do not believe in heaven and the Bible, but as a scientist, I now have to believe in hell. Needless to say, we were shocked to make such a discovery. But we know what we heard and what we saw. And we are absolutely sure that we drilled through the gates of hell. "

It followed from the newspaper that the drama allegedly broke out in the USSR, when geologists conducting surveys in Western Siberia, reached a depth of 14.4 km. Suddenly, the drill bit began to spin wildly, indicating that there was a void or a cave below. When the scientists raised the drill, a fanged, clawed creature with huge evil eyes appeared from the well, screeching like a wild animal, and disappeared. Frightened, most of the workers and engineers fled, and the rest had to go through an equally test.

“We lowered a microphone into the borehole, designed to record the movement of lithospheric plates,” said “Azzakov” further. “But instead, we heard a loud human voice in which there was pain. At first we thought the drilling equipment was making the sound, but when we tested it thoroughly, the worst suspicions were confirmed. The screams and screams did not come from one person. These were the screams and groans of millions of people. Fortunately, we have recorded the terrifying sounds on tape. "

And by June 1990 they had drilled up to 12,260 meters here. 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 Minister of Justice of Norway." When they got interested in it with might and main, it turned out that it was simple school teacher with an overly developed imagination.

He admitted that he had invented everything in order to test how seriously the Christian press checks 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 superdeep wells, which were made for oil production or geological exploration, SG-3 was drilled exclusively for the study of the lithosphere in the place where the border of Mohorovichich. (abbreviated as the Moho boundary) - the lower boundary of the earth's crust, on 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 were well studied in 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. For mining, 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 layer. On June 6, 1979, the well broke the record of 9583 meters, previously owned by the Bertha-Rogers well (an oil well in Oklahoma). V 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 there would be a pronounced boundary between granites and basalts, only granites were found in the core throughout the depth. However, due to high pressure The compacted granites greatly changed the physical and acoustic properties. As a rule, the raised core crumbled from active gas release into the cuttings, since it could not withstand a sharp change in pressure. It was possible to pull out a solid piece of core only with a very slow rise of the drill, when the "excess" gas, while still under pressure to a high pressure, had time to come out of the rock. The density of cracks at great depths, contrary to expectations, increased. There was also water at depth, filling the cracks.

It is interesting that when the International Geological Congress was held in Moscow in 1984, at which the first results of the well survey were presented, many scientists jokingly suggested that it be buried immediately, since it destroys all ideas about the structure of the earth's crust. Indeed, the oddities began in the early stages of penetration. For example, even before drilling began, theorists 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, by seven - over 120 degrees, and at a depth of 12 it was frying stronger than 220 degrees - 100 degrees higher than predicted. Kola drillers questioned the theory of the layer-by-layer structure of the earth's crust - at least in the interval up to 12,262 meters.

"We have the deepest hole in the world - this is how we should use it!" - bitterly exclaims David Guberman, the permanent director of the Kola Superdeep Research and Production Center. In the first 30 years of the existence of the Kola superdeep, Soviet and then Russian scientists broke through to a depth of 12,262 meters. But since 1995, drilling stopped: there was no one to finance the project. What is allocated within the framework of UNESCO's scientific programs is enough only to maintain the drilling station in working order and study previously extracted rock samples.

Guberman 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 wrong. It turned out that the Earth does not at all look like a layer cake.

Another surprise: life on planet Earth appeared, it turns out, 1.5 billion years earlier than expected. At depths where it was believed that there is no organic matter, 14 species of fossilized microorganisms were found - the age of the deep layers exceeded 2.8 billion years. At even greater depths, where there are no longer sedimentary rocks, 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 also 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 drops of water similar 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 exactly where. By the way, the Americans, who brought half a ton of soil from the Moon, did nothing sensible with it. Placed in sealed containers and left for future generations to research.

Quite unexpectedly for everyone, the predictions of Alexei Tolstoy from the novel "The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin" were confirmed. At a depth of over 9.5 kilometers, they discovered a real mine of all kinds of minerals, in particular gold. A real olivine layer, brilliantly predicted by the writer. Gold in it is 78 grams 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 any sedimentary rocks, natural gas methane 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 were also associated with the Kola well, but also mysterious legends, most of which turned out to be fictionalized by journalists when checked. 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 the reportage of a Finnish newspaper. Allegedly, while drilling a well at a depth of 12 thousand meters, the microphones of scientists recorded screams and groans.) Journalists, without even thinking that it is simply not possible to push a microphone to such a depth (what sound recording device can work at temperatures above two hundred degrees?) wrote about the fact 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 each new kilometer drilled brought misfortune to the country. It was said that when the drillers were driving 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 stumbled upon unusual voids. Intrigued by this unexpected discovery, the drillers deployed a microphone capable of operating at extremely high temperatures and other sensors there. The temperature inside allegedly reached 1,100 ° C - there was the heat of the chambers of fire, in which, allegedly, one could hear human screams.

This legend still wanders across the vast expanses of the Internet, having survived the very culprit of these gossip - 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 the well - to "bury". The final abandonment of the well took place in the summer of 2011.
So, as you can see, this time the scientists failed to get to the mantle and examine it. However, this does not mean that the Kola well gave nothing to science - on the contrary, it turned all their ideas about the structure of the earth's crust upside down.

RESULTS

The tasks set in the superdeep drilling project have been completed. Special equipment and technology for ultra-deep drilling, as well as for the study of 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 samples to a depth of 12,262 m. Great gift The well produced its homeland at a shallow depth - in the interval of 1.6-1.8 km. Commercial copper-nickel ores were uncovered there - a new ore horizon was discovered. And very handy, because the local nickel plant is already short of ore.

As noted above, the geological forecast of the well section did not come true. The picture, which was expected during the first 5 km, stretched in the well 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 pass into the stronger basalt layer. In fact, it turned out that there are less strong and less dense fractured rocks - Archean gneisses. This was not supposed in any way. And this is a fundamentally new geological and geophysical information that allows you to interpret the data of deep geophysical research in a different way.

The data on the process of ore formation in the deep layers of the earth's crust also turned out to be unexpected, fundamentally new. Thus, at depths of 9-12 km, highly porous fractured rocks saturated with highly mineralized underground waters were encountered. These waters are one of the sources of ore formation. Previously, it was believed that this is 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 that is considered suitable for industrial development). But will it ever be profitable to mine gold from this depth?

The ideas about the thermal regime of the earth's interior, about the deep distribution of temperatures in the regions of basalt shields have also changed. At a depth of more than 6 km, a temperature gradient of 20оС per 1 km was obtained instead of the expected (as in the upper part) 16оС per 1 km. It was revealed that half of the heat flux is of radiogenic origin.

The bowels 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 a person still does not know exactly what exactly is under our feet deep underground. earthly civilization we were able to go deep into the planet a little over 10 kilometers. This record was set back in 1990 and lasted until 2008, after which it was updated several times. In 2008, the Maersk Oil BD-04A deviated oil well, 12,290 meters long, was drilled (Al-Shahin oil basin in Qatar). In January 2011, an inclined oil well with a depth of 12,345 meters was drilled at the Odoptu-more field (Sakhalin-1 project). The record for drilling depth is currently held by the Z-42 well of the Chayvinskoye field, the depth of which is 12,700 meters.