Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More The World's Deepest Hole
Oct 27, 2020
In the 1970s, Soviet scientists embarked on an incredible journey to drill the world's deepest hole, the Kola Superdeep Borehole. Their mission wasn’t about oil or gas, but pure scientific curiosity. Discover the geopolitical tensions that fueled this groundbreaking project and the unexpected geological findings unearthed along the way. Despite not hitting the Earth’s mantle, the innovative drilling techniques developed during this endeavor have left a lasting impact on science. It’s a fascinating tale of ambition and discovery deep beneath the Earth's surface.
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Why Drilling The Crust Matters
- The Earth's crust is a thin layer only 5–70 km deep, making up less than 1% of Earth's volume.
- Scientists targeted the Moho boundary to sample material just below our feet rather than distant space.
Project Moho's Limited But Useful Win
- The U.S. Project Moho drilled 183 meters into the seafloor but failed to reach the mantle due to extreme conditions.
- The engineering lessons from that effort later enabled offshore drilling advances.
The Long Soviet Drill Campaign
- The Soviets started drilling on the Kola Peninsula in 1970 and reached 12,262 meters by 1989 after many stops for analysis.
- The main hole was only 23 centimeters wide and multiple branch holes made the project slow and complex.