Kola Superdeep Borehole
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The Kola Superdeep Borehole (russian: Кольская сверхглубокая скважина, translit=Kol'skaya sverkhglubokaya skvazhina) SG-3 is the result of a
scientific drilling Scientific drilling into the Earth is a way for scientists to probe the Earth's sediments, crust, and upper mantle. In addition to rock samples, drilling technology can unearth samples of connate fluids and of the subsurface biosphere, mostly micr ...
project of the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
in the
Pechengsky District Pechengsky District (russian: Пе́ченгский райо́н; fi, Petsamo; no, Peisen; se, Beahcán; sms, Peäccam) is an administrative district (raion), one of the administrative divisions of Murmansk Oblast, six in Murmansk Oblast, Russ ...
, near the Russian border with Norway, on the
Kola Peninsula sjd, Куэлнэгк нёа̄ррк , image_name= Kola peninsula.png , image_caption= Kola Peninsula as a part of Murmansk Oblast , image_size= 300px , image_alt= , map_image= Murmansk in Russia.svg , map_caption = Location of Murmansk Oblas ...
. The project attempted to drill as deep as possible into the
Earth's crust Earth's crust is Earth's thin outer shell of rock, referring to less than 1% of Earth's radius and volume. It is the top component of the lithosphere, a division of Earth's layers that includes the crust and the upper part of the mantle. The ...
. Drilling began on 24 May 1970 using the ''
Uralmash Uralmash is a heavy machine production business of the Russian engineering corporation OMZ. Its facility is located in Yekaterinburg, Russia, and it is reported to employ around 16,500 people. The surrounding residential area where workers liv ...
-4E'', and later the ''Uralmash-15000'' series drilling rig, and it became the deepest manmade hole in history in 1979. The diameter
borehole A borehole is a narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water ( drilled water well and tube well), other liquids (such as petro ...
s were drilled by branching from a central hole. The deepest reached in 1989, the deepest human-made hole on Earth, and remains so as of 2022. In terms of
true vertical depth True vertical depth'is the measurement of a straight line perpendicularly downwards from a horizontal plane. In the petroleum industry, true vertical depth, abbreviated as TVD, is the measurement from the surface to the bottom of the borehole ...
, it remains the deepest
borehole A borehole is a narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water ( drilled water well and tube well), other liquids (such as petro ...
in the world. For two decades, it was also the world's longest borehole in terms of
measured depth In the oil industry measured depth (commonly referred to as MD, or just the depth) is the length of the drilled borehole. In conventional vertical wells, this coincides with the true vertical depth, but in directional or horizontal wells, espec ...
along the well bore until it was surpassed in 2008 by the long Al Shaheen Oil Well in
Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...
.


Drilling

Drilling began on 24 May 1970 using the
Uralmash Uralmash is a heavy machine production business of the Russian engineering corporation OMZ. Its facility is located in Yekaterinburg, Russia, and it is reported to employ around 16,500 people. The surrounding residential area where workers liv ...
-4E, a serial drilling rig used for drilling oil wells. The rig was slightly modified to be able to reach a depth. In 1974, the new purpose-built Uralmash-15000 drilling rig was installed onsite, named after the new target depth, set at . On 6 June 1979, the world depth record held by the Bertha Rogers hole in
Washita County, Oklahoma Washita County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2010 census, the population was 11,629. Its county seat is New Cordell. The county seat was formerly located in Cloud Chief. The county was created in 1891. History ...
, United States, at , was broken. In October 1982, the first hole reached , and the second hole was started in January 1983 from a depth of the first hole. In 1983, the drill passed in the second hole, and drilling was stopped for about a year for numerous scientific and celebratory visits to the site. This idle period may have contributed to a breakdown after drilling resumed; on 27 September 1984, after drilling to , a section of the
drill string A drill string on a drilling rig is a column, or string, of drill pipe that transmits drilling fluid (via the mud pumps) and torque (via the kelly drive or top drive) to the Well drilling#Drill bits in mechanical drilling, drill bit. The term ...
twisted off and was left in the hole. Drilling was restarted in September 1986 from from the first hole. The third hole reached in 1989. In that year, the hole depth was expected to reach by the end of 1990 and by 1993. In June 1990, a breakdown occurred in the third hole at of depth. The drilling of the fourth hole was started in January 1991 from of depth of third hole. The drilling of the fourth hole was stopped in April 1992 at of depth. Drilling of the fifth hole started in April 1994 from of depth of the third hole. Drilling was stopped in August 1994 at of depth due to lack of funds and the well itself was mothballed. Because of higher-than-expected temperatures at this depth and location, instead of the expected , drilling deeper was deemed unfeasible. The unexpected decrease in density, the greater porosity, and the unexpectedly high temperatures caused the rock to behave somewhat like a plastic, making drilling nearly impossible.


Research

The Kola Superdeep Borehole penetrated about a third of the way through the
Baltic Shield The Baltic Shield (or Fennoscandian Shield) is a segment of the Earth's crust belonging to the East European Craton, representing a large part of Fennoscandia, northwestern Russia and the northern Baltic Sea. It is composed mostly of Archean and ...
continental crust Continental crust is the layer of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks that forms the geological continents and the areas of shallow seabed close to their shores, known as continental shelves. This layer is sometimes called ''sial'' be ...
, estimated to be around deep, reaching
Archean The Archean Eon ( , also spelled Archaean or Archæan) is the second of four geologic eons of Earth's history, representing the time from . The Archean was preceded by the Hadean Eon and followed by the Proterozoic. The Earth Earth ...
rocks at the bottom. The project has been a site of extensive
geophysical Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' som ...
examinations. The stated areas of study were the deep structure of the Baltic Shield,
seismic Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other ...
discontinuities and the thermal regime in the Earth's crust, the physical and chemical composition of the deep crust and the transition from upper to lower crust,
lithospheric A lithosphere () is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust and the portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time scales of up to thousands of years or ...
geophysics, and to create and develop technologies for deep geophysical study. To scientists, one of the more fascinating findings to emerge from this well is that no transition from
granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
to
basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
was found at the depth of about , where the velocity of seismic waves has a discontinuity. Instead, the change in the seismic wave velocity is caused by a
metamorphic Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock (protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, causin ...
transition in the granite rock. In addition, the rock at that depth had been thoroughly fractured and was saturated with water, which was surprising. This water, unlike surface water, must have come from deep-crust minerals and had been unable to reach the surface because of a layer of impermeable rock. Microscopic plankton fossils were found below the surface. Another unexpected discovery was a large quantity of
hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, an ...
gas. The
drilling mud In geotechnical engineering, drilling fluid, also called drilling mud, is used to aid the drilling of boreholes into the earth. Often used while drilling oil and natural gas wells and on exploration drilling rigs, drilling fluids are also us ...
that flowed out of the hole was described as "boiling" with hydrogen. In 1992, an international geophysical experiment obtained a reflection seismic crustal cross-section through the well. The Kola-92 working group consisted of researchers from the universities of
Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
and
Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
in Scotland, the
University of Wyoming The University of Wyoming (UW) is a public land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, and opened in September 1887. The University of Wyoming ...
in the United States, and the
University of Bergen The University of Bergen ( no, Universitetet i Bergen, ) is a research-intensive state university located in Bergen, Norway. As of 2019, the university has over 4,000 employees and 18,000 students. It was established by an act of parliament in 194 ...
in Norway, as well as several Russian earth science research institutions. The experiment was documented in a video recorded by Professor David Smythe, which shows the drilling deck in action during an attempt to recover a tool dropped down the hole.


Status

The drilling terminated in 1995 due to a lack of funds. The scientific team was transferred to the federal state unitary subsidiary enterprise "Kola Superdeep", reduced and reoriented to a thorough study of the exposed section. In 2007, the scientific team was dissolved and the equipment was transferred to a private company and partially liquidated. In 2008, the company was liquidated due to unprofitability, and the site was abandoned. The site is still visited by curious sightseers, who have reported that the structure over the borehole has been partially destroyed or removed.


Similar projects

* The United States had embarked on a similar project in 1957, dubbed
Project Mohole Project Mohole was an attempt in the early 1960s to drill through the Earth's crust to obtain samples of the Mohorovičić discontinuity, or Moho, the boundary between the Earth's crust and mantle. The project was intended to provide an eart ...
, which was intended to penetrate the shallow crust under the Pacific Ocean off of Mexico. After initial drilling, the project was abandoned in 1966 when funding was cut off. This program inspired the
Ocean Drilling Program The Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) was a multinational effort to explore and study the composition and structure of the Earth's oceanic basins. ODP, which began in 1985, was the successor to the Deep Sea Drilling Project initiated in 1968 by th ...
,
Integrated Ocean Drilling Program The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) was an international marine research program. The program used heavy drilling equipment mounted aboard ships to monitor and sample sub-seafloor environments. With this research, the IODP documented e ...
, and the present
International Ocean Discovery Program The International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) is an international marine research collaboration dedicated to advancing scientific understanding of the Earth through drilling, coring, and monitoring the subseafloor. The research enabled by IODP ...
. * The KTB superdeep borehole (
German Continental Deep Drilling Programme The German Continental Deep Drilling Programme (german: Kontinentales Tiefbohrprogramm der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, lit=Continental deep-drilling program of the Federal Republic of Germany, abbreviated as the KTB borehole, was a scientific dri ...
, 1987–1995) at
Windischeschenbach Windischeschenbach is a town in the district of Neustadt an der Waldnaab, in Bavaria, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe a ...
in northern
Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
was drilled to a depth of , reaching temperatures of more than . Its ambitious measuring program used high-temperature logging tools that were upgraded specifically for KTB.


Records

The Kola Superdeep Borehole was the longest ''and'' deepest borehole in the world from 1989 to 2008. In May 2008, the Kola Superdeep Borehole's record ''length'' (but not record depth) was surpassed by a curved borehole of the
extended reach drilling Extended Reach Drilling (ERD) is directional drilling of very long horizontal wells. The aims of ERD are: a) to reach a larger area from one surface drilling location, and b) to keep a well in a reservoir for a longer distance in order to maximize ...
well BD-04A in the Al Shaheen Oil Field in Qatar, with a total length of and a horizontal reach of . In terms of depth below the surface, the Kola Superdeep Borehole SG-3 retains the world record at reached in 1989 and is still the deepest artificial point on Earth.


See also

* , deep oceanic drilling ship, which achieved a
subsea Subsea technology involves fully submerged ocean equipment, operations, or applications, especially when some distance offshore, in deep ocean waters, or on the seabed. The term ''subsea'' is frequently used in connection with oceanography, marin ...
drilling record in 2012 * , covers the lowest point on land * * * * * * * *
Vertical Seismic Profile In geophysics, vertical seismic profile (VSP) is a technique of seismic measurements used for correlation with surface seismic data. The defining characteristic of a VSP (of which there are many types) is that either the energy source, or the detec ...
— Wikipedia Article on the concept for seismic measurements used * observed since 1995


Notes


References


Further reading

* *


External links


Official Kola Superdeep Borehole website

The World's Deepest Hole – Alaska Science Forum – July 1985

The Deepest Hole
20 June 2006

1984 * ttp://alexeyzaytsev.ru/2017/10/26/kola-superdeep/ Photo report on a trip to the Kola superdeep well in 2017 Many photos of the current state. {{Petroleum industry Structure of the Earth Buildings and structures in Murmansk Oblast Science and technology in Russia Science and technology in the Soviet Union Deepest boreholes 1970 establishments in the Soviet Union Cancelled projects Earth's crust