“On the threshold of hell”: Kola superdeep well (7 photos). Ultra-deep well on the Kola Peninsula: history and secrets

Soil studies prove: the Moon has broken away from the Kola Peninsula

Kola superdeep section

Kola superdeep

Allegedly, on approaching the 13th kilometer, the instruments recorded a strange noise coming from the bowels of the planet - the yellow newspapers unanimously assured that only the cries of sinners from the underworld could sound like that. A few seconds after the terrible sound appeared, an explosion occurred...

Space under your feet

In the late 70s and early 80s, getting a job at the Kola Superdeep Well, as residents of the village of Zapolyarny in the Murmansk Region affectionately call the well, was more difficult than getting into the cosmonaut corps. Out of hundreds of applicants, one or two were chosen. Along with the employment order, the lucky ones received a separate apartment and a salary equal to double or triple the salary of Moscow professors. There were 16 research laboratories operating at the well simultaneously, each the size of an average factory. Only the Germans dug the earth with such tenacity, but, as the Guinness Book of Records testifies, the deepest German well is almost half as long as ours.

Distant galaxies have been studied by humanity much better than what is located under the earth’s crust a few kilometers away from us. The Kola Superdeep is a kind of telescope into the mysterious inner world planets.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, it was believed that the Earth consists of a crust, mantle and core. At the same time, no one could really say where one layer ends and the next begins. Scientists did not even know what these layers actually consist of. Some 40 years ago they were sure that the granite layer begins at a depth of 50 meters and continues up to 3 kilometers, and then there are basalts. The mantle was expected to be encountered at a depth of 15–18 kilometers. In reality, everything turned out completely different. And although school textbooks still write that the Earth consists of three layers, scientists from the Kola Superdeep Site have proven that this is not so.

Baltic shield

Projects for traveling deep into the Earth appeared in the early 60s in several countries at once. They tried to drill wells in places where the crust should have been thinner - the goal was to reach the mantle. For example, the Americans drilled in the area of the island of Maui, Hawaii, where, according to seismic studies, ancient rocks emerge under the ocean floor and the mantle is located at a depth of approximately 5 kilometers under a four-kilometer layer of water. Alas, not a single ocean drilling site has penetrated deeper than 3 kilometers. In general, almost all projects of ultra-deep wells mysteriously ended at a depth of three kilometers. It was at this moment that something strange began to happen to the drills: either they found themselves in unexpected super-hot areas, or as if they were being bitten off by some unprecedented monster. Only 5 wells broke through deeper than 3 kilometers, 4 of which were Soviet. And only the Kola Superdeep was destined to overcome the 7-kilometer mark.

Initial domestic projects also involved underwater drilling - in the Caspian Sea or on Lake Baikal. But in 1963, drilling scientist Nikolai Timofeev convinced the USSR State Committee for Science and Technology that it was necessary to create a well on the continent. Although it would take much longer to drill, he believed, the well would be much more valuable from a scientific point of view, because it is in the thickness of the continental plates that prehistoric times the most significant movements of earth rocks occurred. The drilling point was not chosen on the Kola Peninsula by chance. The peninsula is located on the so-called Baltic Shield, which is composed of the most ancient known to mankind breeds

A multi-kilometer section of the layers of the Baltic Shield is a visual history of the planet over the past 3 billion years.

Conqueror of the Depths

Appearance The Kola drilling rig is capable of disappointing the average person. The well is not like the mine that our imagination pictures. There are no descents underground, only a drill with a diameter of a little more than 20 centimeters goes into the thickness. The imaginary section of the Kola superdeep well looks like a tiny needle piercing the earth's thickness. A drill with numerous sensors, located at the end of a needle, is raised and lowered over several days. You can’t go faster: the strongest composite cable can break under its own weight.

What happens in the depths is not known for certain. Temperature environment, noise and other parameters are transmitted upward with a minute delay. However, drillers say that even such contact with the underground can be seriously frightening. The sounds coming from below really look like screams and howls. To this we can add long list accidents that plagued the Kola Superdeep when it reached a depth of 10 kilometers. Twice the drill was taken out melted, although the temperatures at which it can melt are comparable to the temperature of the surface of the Sun. One day, it was as if the cable had been pulled from below and was torn off. Subsequently, when they drilled in the same place, no remains of the cable were found. What caused these and many other accidents still remains a mystery. However, they were not the reason for stopping drilling in the Baltic Shield.

12,000 meters of discoveries and a little devilry

“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 stands out within scientific programs UNESCO 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 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 incorrect. It turned out that the Earth is not at all like layered cake. “Up to 4 kilometers everything went according to theory, and then the end of the world began,” says Huberman. Theorists promised that the temperature of the Baltic Shield would remain relatively low to a depth of at least 15 kilometers. Accordingly, it will be possible to dig a well up to almost 20 kilometers, just up to the mantle. But already at 5 kilometers the ambient temperature exceeded 700C, at seven - over 1200C, and at a depth of 12 it was hotter than 2200C - 1000C 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. At school we were taught: there are young rocks, granites, basalts, mantle and core. But the granites turned out to be 3 kilometers lower than expected. Next there should have been basalts. They weren't found at all. All drilling took place in the granite layer. This is a very important discovery, because all our ideas about the origin and distribution of minerals are connected with the theory of the layered structure of the Earth.

Demons

There were almost fantastic sensations. When, in the late 70s, the Soviet automatic space station brought 124 grams of lunar soil to Earth, Kola researchers scientific center They found that it is exactly like 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.

The history of the Kola Superdeep is not without mysticism. Officially, as already mentioned, the well stopped due to lack of funds. Coincidence or not, it was precisely in 1995 that a powerful explosion of unknown origin was heard in the depths of the mine. Journalists from a Finnish newspaper broke through to the residents of Zapolyarny - and the world was shocked by the story of a demon flying out of the bowels of the planet.

"When I talk about this mysterious story They started asking questions at UNESCO, I didn’t know what to answer. On the one hand, it's bullshit. On the other hand, I, as an honest scientist, could not say that I know what exactly happened to us. A very strange noise was recorded, then there was an explosion... A few days later, nothing like that was found at the same depth,” recalls academician David Guberman.

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 possible at a concentration of 34 grams per ton. Perhaps in the near future humanity will be able to take advantage of this wealth.

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.

Grandiose science project walked 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.

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 sensations panic fear 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 thunderclap thundered at the drilling rig. powerful explosion. 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.

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.

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- analogue of a time machine. On the Kola Peninsula they approach the surface ancient breeds, whose age exceeds 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.

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.

The final

So why did they close the Kola superdeep pipeline?

First, the main tasks scientific expedition were completed. It was created in extreme conditions tested and noticeably improved unique equipment for drilling at great depths. 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.

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 area 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 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 high pressure 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 mining 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, it was found natural gas methane 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 of which, when tested, turned out to be fabrications of journalists. 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 lowered a microphone there, 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 physical condition, properties and composition rocks in their natural occurrence and on 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 km. 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 thermal mode of the earth's interior, about the deep distribution of temperatures in areas of basalt shields. 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). Drilling depth record for this moment belongs to the Z-42 well of the Chayvinskoye field, the depth of which is 12,700 meters.

I want to tell you about the famous super-deep Kola well. It’s unlikely that many people knew (like me, until my father told me) that the Kola SG-3 well was the deepest drilled well in the world (until 2008). While still studying at the institute, teachers carried legends about the Kola well from corner to corner, although many of our teachers had nothing to do with drilling, etc.

General review:

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 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 comes close to the Earth's surface.

It was also the deepest well until 2008, when it was surpassed by the Maersk Oil BD-04A oil well, drilled at an acute angle to the surface of the earth, whose length is 12,290 meters (located in the Al Shaheen oil basin, Qatar), after which in January 2011 this The well was also bypassed by the oil well of the Odoptu-Sea field of the Sakhalin-1 project, also drilled at an acute angle to the surface of the earth, with a length of 12,345 meters.

Well from a scientific point of view:

When the drilling of the famous Kola super-deep well began at the end of the last century, the media wrote that in the very thickness of the earth, the microphones of scientists recorded screams and moans... Is the Underworld really located there? Whether this is true or not, what the researchers saw radically changed traditional ideas about the structure of the upper layer of the Earth.

For a long time, people have been trying to understand how the interior of our planet works. However for a long time it was not possible to drill into the earth's solid surface more than a few hundred meters - there was no necessary equipment. Therefore, all ideas about internal structure Earths are based mainly on theoretical calculations, which have not yet been confirmed by experimental data.

According to the generally accepted point of view, the Earth consists of three large layers: the core, the mantle and the earth's crust. In the center there is a core divided into an inner solid region (with a radius of about 1300 km) and a liquid outer core with a radius of about 2200 km, between which a transition zone is sometimes distinguished. It is believed that this area of the planet is composed of an iron-nickel alloy.

Next is the mantle - a layer consisting of silicates of magnesium, iron, calcium and other metals. It extends from depths of 5-70 kilometers below the boundary with the earth's crust, to the boundary with the core at a depth of 2900 km. It is believed that the mantle is quite hot and in some of its layers the substance is in a molten state.

The upper layers of the mantle are in contact with the earth's crust - the very layer on which we, in fact, live. The thickness of this outer shell varies from several kilometers (in oceanic regions) to several tens of kilometers (in mountainous regions of continents). The sphere of the earth's crust is very small, accounting for only about 0.5% of the total mass of the planet. The main composition of the bark is oxides of silicon, aluminum, iron and alkali metals.

It is believed that the continental crust, which contains an upper (granite) and lower (basaltic) sedimentary layer, contains the most ancient rocks of the Earth, the age of which is estimated at more than 3 billion years. The oceanic crust is younger and thinner - under the accumulations of sediments (their age does not exceed 100-150 million years) there is only one layer, similar in composition to basalt.

It turns out that for the entire time of their existence, people have not been able to really explore even the earth’s crust, let alone “feel” the mantle or core, so about this throughout for long years none of the scientists even dared to dream. However, in the middle of the twentieth century, the equipment necessary for such research was finally developed, and the dream began to turn into reality.

Projects for traveling deep into the Earth appeared in the early 60s of the last century in several countries at once. They tried to drill wells in places where the earth's crust should have been thinner, since the purpose of such drilling was to reach the mantle, which, in fact, was going to be studied in detail.

For example, the Americans drilled in the area of the island of Maui, Hawaii, where, according to seismic studies, ancient rocks emerge under the ocean floor and the mantle is located at a depth of approximately five kilometers (under four kilometers of water). However, not a single ocean drilling deeper than 3 kilometers was able to break through.

In general, almost all projects of ultra-deep wells mysteriously ended at a depth of three kilometers. It was at this moment that something strange began to happen to the Boers: either they found themselves in unexpected areas with high temperatures, or they seemed to be bitten off by some mysterious underground demon. So in most cases it was not even possible to study the composition of the deep layers of the earth's crust, not to mention the mantle, the study of which, in fact, was the real goal of such research.

Start of drilling:

Kola drilling rig. Residential town and auxiliary workshops

And so, in 1970, drilling of the famous Kola well began on the Kola Peninsula. The drilling point in this place of the peninsula was not chosen by chance - the peninsula is located on the so-called Baltic Shield, which is composed of the most ancient rocks known to mankind. Work at this site was carried out from 1970 to 1992, during which time it was possible to “pierce” the earth’s crust by 12,262 meters.

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 drilling began, promised that the temperature of the Baltic Shield would remain relatively low to a depth of at least 15 kilometers. Accordingly, it will be possible to dig a well up to almost 20 kilometers, just up to the mantle.

However, already at a depth of five kilometers, the ambient temperature exceeded 700C, at seven - over 1200C, and at a depth of 12 kilometers, sensors recorded as much as 2200C - 1000C higher than predicted. Scientists have still not found an explanation for this phenomenon.

The well also did not confirm the idea that the earth’s crust is structured like a layer cake - first sedimentary rocks, then granites, and basalts below. However, according to drillers, the granites turned out to be 3 kilometers lower than scientists expected. And the basalt layer was completely absent - the last 6 kilometers were made exclusively through granite. Scientists believe that the Kola drillers, without realizing it, made a discovery that was extremely important for all of humanity.

The Kola superdeep well gave researchers another surprise: life on planet Earth, it turns out, arose 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, and the age of these deep layers exceeded 2.8 billion years. 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 utterly 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 (born by the authors of reports from a Finnish newspaper), in the very thickness of the earth, at a depth of over 12 thousand meters, microphones of scientists recorded screams and moans.

Myths or reality:

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 excavating thirteen 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 this 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. And two years ago, 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 this year.

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. Perhaps the researchers of the currently operating Maersk Oil oil well (12,290 meters deep - which is 28 meters deeper than the Kola), which is located in the Al Shaheen oil basin in Qatar, will be able to go even deeper.
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Materials: Alexey Voskoboynik (alex_oil), Wikipedia and online sources about the Kola well

Many scientific and industrial works involve drilling underground wells. Total Such objects in Russia alone are hardly calculable. But legendary Kola superdeep has remained unsurpassed since the 1990s, extending more than 12 kilometers deep into the Earth! It wasn't drilled for economic benefit, and out of purely scientific interest - to find out what processes are occurring inside the planet.

Kola superdeep well. First stage drilling rig (depth 7600 m), 1974

50 candidates per position

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 the birth of V.I. Lenin. The choice of location was not accidental - it is here, on the territory of the Baltic Shield, that the oldest rocks, which are three billion years old, come to the surface.

WITH late XIX 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 up to three kilometers, then basalts, and at a depth of 15-18 kilometers the mantle begins. All this had to be tested in practice.

Underground exploration in the 1960s resembled a space race, with leading countries trying to get ahead of each other. It was suggested that at great depths there are rich deposits of minerals, including gold.

The Americans were the first to drill ultra-deep wells. In the early 1960s, their scientists discovered that the Earth's crust was much thinner under the oceans. Therefore, the area near the island of Maui (one of the Hawaiian Islands), where the earth’s mantle is located at a depth of approximately five kilometers (plus a 4-kilometer layer of water), was chosen as the most promising place for work. But both attempts by US researchers ended in failure.

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

The project became one of the largest in the USSR. There were 16 research laboratories working at the well. Getting a job here was no less difficult than getting into the cosmonaut corps. Ordinary employees received triple salary and an apartment in Moscow or Leningrad. Not surprisingly, there was no staff turnover at all, and at least 50 candidates applied for each position.

Space sensation

Drilling to a depth of 7263 meters was carried out using a conventional serial installation, which at that time was used 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 installation of a more powerful Uralmash-15000 installation, created in Sverdlovsk and called “Severyanka”. Its work used the turbine principle - when not the entire column rotates, but only the drilling head.

With every meter passed, the excavation became more difficult. Previously it was believed that the temperature of the rock, even at a depth of 15 kilometers, would not exceed 150 °C. But it turned out that at a depth of eight kilometers it reached 169 °C, and at a depth of 12 kilometers it reached 220 °C!

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

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 Pit circulated in all the world's leading newspapers and magazines, and postage stamps were issued in its honor in several countries.

But the main thing is that a real sensation was prepared especially for the congress. It turned out that rock samples taken at a 3-kilometer depth of the Kola well are completely identical to lunar soil (it was first delivered 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 was torn away from it as a result of a cosmic catastrophe. Now it was possible to say that the breakaway part of our planet, billions of years ago, came into contact with the area of the current Kola Peninsula.

The ultra-deep well became a real triumph of Soviet science. Researchers, designers, even ordinary workers were honored and awarded for almost a whole year.

Kola superdeep well, 2007

Gold in the deep

At this time, work on the Kola superdeep mine was suspended. They were resumed only in September 1984. And the very first launch led to a major accident. The employees seemed to have forgotten what was inside underground passage There are constant changes. The well does not forgive stopping work - and forces you to start all over again.

As a result, the drill string broke, leaving five kilometers of pipes deep. 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-kilometer mark. They approached 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 operation of the well was affected by both failures on a local scale and events taking place in the country. The capabilities of the existing technology were exhausted, and government funding decreased sharply. After several serious accidents, drilling was stopped in 1992.

The scientific significance of the Kola Superdeep is difficult to overestimate. First of all, work on it confirmed the guess about rich deposits of minerals at great depths. Certainly, precious metals V pure form were not found there. But at the nine-kilometer mark, seams with a gold content of 78 grams per ton were discovered (active industrial mining is carried out when this content is 34 grams per ton).

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 was commonly thought.

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

Shortly before its closure, in 1989, the Kola Superdeep Pipe again became the center of international attention. The director of the well, academician David Guberman, suddenly began to receive calls and letters from all over the world. Scientists, journalists, and simply inquisitive citizens were interested in the question: is it true that an ultra-deep well has become a “well to hell”?

It turned out that representatives of the Finnish press talked with some employees 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. One of the employees put forward the version that this the cries of sinners in hell.

How true are such stories? Technically, placing a microphone instead of a drill is difficult, but possible. True, the work to lower it may take several weeks. And it would hardly have been possible to carry it out at a sensitive facility instead of drilling. But, on the other hand, many well employees actually heard strange sounds that regularly came from the depths. And no one knew for sure what it could be.

At the instigation of Finnish journalists, the world press published a number of articles claiming that the Kola superdeep is “the road to hell.” Mystical significance began to be attributed to the fact that the USSR collapsed when the drillers were excavating the “unlucky” thirteen thousand meters.

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

Kola superdeep well, 2012

The well itself (welded), August 2012

Museum for 100 million

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

According to employees of the Geological Institute of the Kola Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which previously owned the well, its restoration would cost 100 million rubles.

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

Anastasia BABANOVSKAYA, magazine "Secrets of the 20th Century" No. 5 2017