In the USSR, they loved the scale, but more, and this extended to literally everything. So one well was dug in the Union, which even today bears the title of the deepest on earth. It is noteworthy that the well was drilled not for oil production or geological exploration, but purely for scientific research.
The tips with which the well was drilled.
The Kola Superdeep Borehole, or SG-3, is the deepest man-made borehole in the earth. Located in the Murmansk region, 10 kilometers from the city of Zapolyarny, in westward... The depth of the hole is 12,262 meters. Its diameter at the top is 92 centimeters. At the bottom - 21.5 centimeters. An important feature SG-3 is that, unlike any other wells for oil production or geological work, this one was drilled exclusively for scientific purposes.
The well was laid in 1970, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin. The site chosen is notable for the fact that the well was drilled in over 3 billion years old volcanic rocks that surface. By the way, the age of the Earth is about 4.5 billion years. In the extraction of minerals, wells are rarely drilled deeper than two thousand meters.
The work went on day and night.
Drilling began on May 24, 1970. Up to 7 thousand meters, drilling was easy and calm, but after hitting the head in less dense rocks, problems began. The process has slowed down significantly. Only 6 June 1979 was delivered new record- 9583 meters. It was previously installed in the United States by oil producers. The mark of 12,066 meters was passed in 1983. The result was achieved by the International Geological Congress, which was held in Moscow. Subsequently, two accidents occurred at the complex.
Now the complex looks like this.
In 1997, several legends were circulated in the media at once that the Kola superdeep well is the real road to hell. In one of these legends, it was said that when the team lowered the microphone to a depth of several thousand meters, human screams, groans and screams were heard there.
Of course, there was nothing of the kind. If only because special equipment is used to record sound in the borehole at such a depth, but it did not record anything either. There were indeed several accidents at the complex, including an underground explosion during drilling, but the geologists did not disturb any underground "demons" for sure.
The well itself has been mothballed.
What is really important is that 16 research laboratories operated on SG-3. In times Soviet Union Russian geologists were able to make many valuable discoveries and better understand how our planet works. The work on the site has significantly improved the drilling technology. Scientists were also able to understand the local geological processes, received comprehensive data on the thermal regime of the subsoil, underground gases and deep waters.
Unfortunately, today the Kola superdeep well is closed. The building of the complex has been dilapidated since the last laboratory was closed here in 2008 and all equipment has been dismantled. The reason is simple - lack of funding. In 2010, the well was already suspended. Now it is slowly but surely collapsing under the influence of natural processes.
The party said: "We must!" The Komsomol replied: “Yes!”. The slogan from the poster from the times of the USSR still did not leave my thoughts while I was going on a business trip to. The only pleasant moment was meeting with a friend whom I had not seen for almost 10 years. Masha promised me an excursion to the "road to hell"
180 km from Murmansk is Kola superdeep well (12262 m)... Drilling began in 1970. It is with her that the legend is connected that Soviet scientists released demons, drilling a way into the underworld. After overcoming a depth of 12,000 m, employees of the drilling station began to hear strange voices from the mine, similar to human screams. Some of them suggested that people hear the cries of sinners who have gone to hell. The current depth was reached in 1990. Work was suspended in 1992, and in 2008 the project was completely closed and most of the equipment was dismantled.
From Murmansk we went by car to Zapolyarny. We covered almost 160 km without haste in 3 hours. Around the tundra, somewhat strange and dull, the vegetation is burnt in places, in the lowlands there is a small, crooked, rare forest and snow that did not have time to melt.
What is left of the devil's well lies 8 km from Zapolyarnoye, but you can skip a turn from the highway without knowing the terrain. Turning off the highway, we entered the region of mountains from industrial waste. These are dumps, huge hills of black stone, left after the extraction of nickel and copper.
A few tips for those wishing to see the legendary well:
- July is the warmest time of the year;
- sneakers for light trekking are suitable as shoes;
- warm clothes, sudden temperature changes are possible;
- it is easy to get lost among quarries and dumps;
- in the ruins, you can stumble upon puddles of technical liquid, mercury thermometers, metal pins, glass, walk more carefully, it is advisable to have a first-aid kit with you.
All that remains of the Kola Superdeep are dull ruins under the scorching sun, reminiscent of greatest discoveries taken while drilling.
The deepest well in the world is located on the Kola Peninsula near the town of Zapolyarny (Murmansk region); its depth will be 12 kilometers 262 meters, which is an absolute world record. In 1997, the Kola Superdeep was entered in the Guinness Book of Records, but by that time it itself was no longer working: drilling was stopped in 1992, the well was mothballed, and what remained of the drilling rig was abandoned to the mercy of fate and actually plundered.
However, over the years of drilling, Soviet scientists managed to make many discoveries that related to the composition crust and shed light on some scientific issues.
Preparatory work
The main task of drilling the well was to reach the Earth's mantle, which is supposed to consist of molten rocks. To do this, they decided to drill in the place of the Pecheneg trough of the Baltic shield in the north-west of the East European platform - one of the most ancient formations of the planet. The age of the rocks emerging here, according to scientists, was at least three billion years old. The main task of drilling was to identify the features of the shield and determine the boundaries between the layers of the earth's crust.
A unique team of Soviet scientists was created to create the well; up to 3,000 specialists and 16 research laboratories worked at the well at the same time. The Soviet scientist David Mironovich Guberman became the head of the Kola Superdeep, the head of the drilling rig was Alexei Batishchev, the chief engineer was Ivan Vasilchenko, the team of geologists included the famous geologists Yuri Kuznetsov, Yuri Smirnov and Vladimir Lanev.
Drilling
Throughout 1970, drilling was carried out with a conventional drilling rig, then the work had to be stopped, and wells were built on the spot. new installation Uralmash-15000 designed for deep drilling.
This drilling rig was a tower with a twenty-story building, sheathed on top with sheets of plywood - otherwise it was impossible to work in winter. Soviet scientists used turbine drilling - a method by which only a drill bit rotates inside the well under the pressure of the incoming fluid.
It took only about four hours a day to drill at great depths - the rest of the time was spent lifting pipes to the surface for coring. During this time, the drill managed to pass from seven to ten meters of the rock. It took the drillers four years to cover the first seven kilometers.
The twelve-kilometer mark was passed already in 1983, after which the work was suspended - the Moscow International Geological Congress was approaching, at which the discoveries made at the well were demonstrated.
Drilling continued in 1984, but it turned out that a deep well cannot be left unattended for a long time - changes are taking place in its structure. The accident, which threw the Soviet geologists to a mark of seven kilometers, occurred on the very first sinking on September 27, 1984: a 200-ton column was broken. Anything below seven kilometers was lost. For almost a year, geologists tried to get pipes, but then they found it impossible and began to drill a bypass bore. The main difficulty was that from a depth of nine kilometers, core extraction became difficult - the rock crumbled and only the strongest "plaques" remained inside the pipes.
The maximum depth was reached six years later - in 1990. The pressure at this depth was 1,000 atmospheres. After that, I had to admit that the capabilities of the equipment were limited and after several accidents the work was curtailed.
First, it was found that the temperature in the depths of the earth's crust is completely different from what scientists expected, who believed that it would be low to a depth of 15 kilometers. It turned out that at a depth of five kilometers it is 75 degrees Celsius, at seven - it reaches 120 degrees, and at a depth of 12 kilometers it reaches 220 degrees.
Secondly, Soviet science believed that older basalts should follow the younger granites. This theory has been refuted. The layer of grants turned out to be several times thicker than expected, and underneath it lay less strong fractured rocks - Archean gneisses (Archean - geological period which lasted from 4,000,000 years ago to 2,500,000 years ago).
At a depth of nine to 12 kilometers, they found deep aquifers that were not expected to be found at all.
At a depth of 1.5-2 kilometers, an ore horizon was discovered - rocks rich in rare earth metals.
The olivine belt of the planet was also found, the hypothesis of the existence of which was expressed at the beginning of the 20th century by the famous geologist Vladimir Afanasyevich Obruchev. They found him deeper than nine kilometers, it turned out. that it contains a gold concentration suitable for mining.
It was discovered that rock samples at a depth of three kilometers completely correspond to the lunar soil, which confirms the theory that the Moon at one time, under the influence of an asteroid impact, could break away from the Earth.
A little bit of hell
Superstitious people associate many legends with the Kola Superdeep. Some say that it was closed because Soviet scientists allegedly made it to hell, others that demons come out of it at night, others claim that the voices of people suffering in the underworld are heard from it.
In fact, these are all echoes of the publication of a Finnish newspaper, which just joked, releasing an article about the well on April 1. However, as often happens, the joke, perhaps taking it for the truth, or perhaps deciding to scare its listeners with "terrible Russians", was picked up by one of the American TV companies, after which rumors about the devilry taking place at the well spread all over the world.
Of course, it was difficult to work on the Kola Superdeep, the high temperature at depth and enormous pressure created many emergency situations... However, scientists assure that there was no devilry. It was difficult, often routine work.
In 1970, exactly to the 100th anniversary of Lenin, 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.
Grandiose science project went for more than twenty years. He brought a lot most interesting discoveries, went down in the history of science, and in the end was overgrown with so many legends, rumors and gossip that it would be enough for more than one horror film.
THE USSR. Kola Peninsula. October 1, 1980 Advanced well drillers reaching record depths of 10,500 meters
Entrance to hell
During its heyday, the drilling rig on the Kola Peninsula was a cyclopean structure 20-storey high. Up to three thousand people worked here per shift. The team was headed by the country's leading geologists. The drilling 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 spread. By all standards, the drilling was remarkably successful. No one in the world has yet managed to reach such a depth - Soviet geologists lowered the drill by more than 12 kilometers.
The sudden completion of a successful project looked as ridiculous as the fact that the Americans closed the program of flights to the moon. Aliens were blamed for the collapse of the lunar project. In the problems of the Kola superdeep - devils and demons.
A popular legend says that from great depths, drills were taken out more than once 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 groans, screams and sighs. Dispatchers who followed the readings of the instruments complained about the sensations panic fear and anxiety.
Legend has it 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 stopped.
Many were skeptical about these rumors. However, in 1995, after the work was stopped, a powerful explosion thundered at the drilling rig. No one understood what could have exploded there, not even the head of the entire project, a prominent geologist David Guberman.
Today, excursions are led to the abandoned drilling rig and tourists are told a fascinating story about how scientists drilled a hole into the underworld of the dead. Wailing ghosts roam like an installation, and in the evening demons crawl out to the surface and strive to snatch into the abyss of a gaping extremal.
Underground moon
In fact, the whole story with the "well to hell" was invented by Finnish journalists by April 1. Their humorous article was reprinted in American newspapers, and the duck flew to the masses. Long-term drilling of the Kola Superdeep went on without any mysticism. But what happened there in reality was more interesting than any legends.
To begin with, ultra-deep drilling was, by definition, doomed to numerous accidents. Under the yoke of gigantic pressure (up to 1000 atmospheres) and high temperatures, the borax could not withstand, the well was clogged, the pipes with which the mouth were strengthened broke. Countless times, the narrow hole was bent so that new branches had to be drilled.
The worst accident happened shortly after the main triumph of geologists. In 1982, they were able to overcome the 12 km 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, showed them the drilling rig and rock samples mined at a fantastic depth, to which mankind has never reached.
After the celebration, drilling continued. However, the break in work turned out to be fatal. In 1984, the worst accident happened on the drilling rig. As many as five kilometers of pipes broke off and hammered in a well. It was impossible to continue drilling. The results of five years of work were lost overnight.
They had to resume drilling from the 7-kilometer mark. Only in 1990 did geologists manage to cross 12 kilometers again. 12,262 meters - this is the final depth of the Kola well.
But in parallel with the terrible accidents, incredible discoveries also took place. Deep drilling- analogue of a time machine. On the Kola Peninsula, the most ancient rocks, which are more than 3 billion years old, approach the surface. Going deeper and deeper, scientists got a clear idea of what happened on our planet during its youth.
First of all, it turned out that traditional scheme 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,” Guberman later said.
According to calculations, having drilled a layer of granite, it was supposed to get to even harder, basalt rocks. But no basalt was found. After the granite, there were loose layered rocks that constantly crumbled and made it difficult to move inland.
But among the rocks that are 2.8 billion years old, fossilized microorganisms have been 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 cleared up the question 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 "Engineer Garin's Hyperboloid."
But the most fantastic discovery came in the late 1970s, when the Soviet lunar station brought in samples of lunar soil. Geologists were amazed to see that its composition completely coincides 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 of the origin of the Moon suggests that several billion years ago the Earth collided with some kind of 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 precisely in the area of the present Kola Peninsula.
The final
So why did they close the Kola Superdeep?
First, the main tasks of the scientific expedition were completed. It was created in extreme conditions unique equipment for drilling at great depths has been tested and significantly improved. The collected rock samples were examined and described in detail. The Kola well has 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 was cut off for a scientific expedition. 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 its entire supply of wonders. The leader was also sure of this. famous project... "We have the deepest hole in the world - this is how we should use it!" - exclaimed David Guberman.
The Kola Superdeep Well (SG-3) is the deepest borehole in the world. It is located in the Murmansk region, 10 kilometers west of the city of Zapolyarny, on the territory of the Baltic Shield.
Its depth is 12,262 meters. Unlike other super-deep 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 Mohorovichich boundary comes close to the Earth's surface.
The Kola superdeep well served as the source of the urban legend of the road to hell (English Well to Hell hoax). This urban legend has been around the Internet since at least 1997. For the first time in English, the legend was voiced in 1989 on the air of the American television company Trinity Broadcasting Network, which took the story from the report of a Finnish newspaper. According to this legend, in the very thick of the earth, at a depth of 12 thousand meters, scientists' microphones recorded screams and groans. The tabloid newspapers write that this is "a voice from the underworld." The Kola superdeep well began to be called "the road to hell" - each new kilometer drilled brought misfortune to the country. When the drillers were driving the thirteenth thousand meters, the USSR collapsed. Not long before that, at a terrible depth, which no one in the world had ever reached, there were sounds chilling the soul, similar to the groans and cries of hundreds of tormentors. And then - a powerful roar and an explosion in the depths. The drillers say that they felt horror - as if something terrible had jumped out of the mine, invisible to the eye, but that made it even more frightening. Their stories 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. They stopped, despite the fact that many international funds were ready to invest in a unique project. According to legend, one of the main reasons for the superdeep well being abandoned was that very fear.
Project manager Azzakov says:
“As a communist, I don't believe in Heaven or the Bible, but as a scientist, I now believe in hell. Needless to say, we were really shocked to make such a discovery.
We put a microphone down the hole to record the sound of movement lithospheric plates... But instead of moving the plates, we heard a screaming human voice in which pain sounded. At first we thought the sound was coming from our own drilling equipment.
Then the sound recording was made at night, when the drill was turned off and the equipment was re-adjusted, our worst suspicions were confirmed. The screams, screams were not the screams and screams of one person, they were the screams, screams and groans of millions of people. "