The earth is below us. Superdeep well on the Kola Peninsula: history and secrets

Many scientific and industrial works are connected with drilling of underground wells. Total such objects only in Russia is hardly calculable. But legendary Kola Superdeep since the 1990s, it has remained unsurpassed, going into the thickness of the Earth for more than 12 kilometers! It was drilled not for economic gain, but purely scientific interest- learn what processes occur inside the planet.

Kola superdeep well. Drilling rig of the first stage (depth 7600 m), 1974

50 candidates per seat

The most amazing well in the world is located in 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, and 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 place was not accidental - it is here, on the territory of the Baltic Shield, that the most ancient rocks, whose age is three billion years old, come to the surface.

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

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

Soviet Union it was necessary to adequately answer. 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 became one of the largest in the USSR. 16 research laboratories worked at the well. Getting a job here was no less difficult than getting into the cosmonaut corps. Ordinary employees received a 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

Down to a depth of 7263 meters, the drilling was carried out using a conventional serial installation, which at that time was used in the extraction of oil or gas. This phase took four years. Then there was a one-year break for the construction of a new tower and the installation of a more powerful Uralmash-15000 installation, created in Sverdlovsk and called Severyanka. In her 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 drive. 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 was 220 ° C at all!

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 beginning 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 were published in all the world's leading newspapers and magazines, and postage stamps were issued in several countries in her honor.

But the main thing is that a real sensation was prepared especially for the congress. It turned out that rock samples taken at a depth of 3 km Kola well, are completely identical to the 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 broke 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 was in contact with the region of the present Kola Peninsula.

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

Kola superdeep well, 2007

Gold in the Deep

At this time, work on the Kola Superdeep was suspended. They were resumed only in September 1984. And the first launch led to the biggest accident. Employees seem to have forgotten what's 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 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-kilometer mark. The depth of 12 kilometers was reached 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 failures of a local scale and events taking place in the country. The possibilities of the available equipment were exhausted, state funding decreased sharply. After several serious accidents, drilling was stopped in 1992.

scientific significance The Kola Superdeep is hard to overestimate. First of all, work on it confirmed the conjecture about the rich deposits of minerals at great depths. Of course, precious metals in their pure form were not found there. But at the mark of nine kilometers, layers were discovered with a gold content of 78 grams per ton (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 it was commonly thought.

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

Shortly before closing, in 1989, the Kola Superdeep was again in the center of international attention. The director of the well, Academician David Huberman, suddenly received calls and letters from all over the world. Scientists, journalists, just inquisitive citizens were interested in the question: is it true that the super-deep well has become a "well to hell"?

It turned out that representatives of the Finnish press were talking to some employees of the Kola Superdeep. And they admitted: when the drill crossed the mark of 12 kilometers, strange noises began to be heard from the depths of the well. Instead of a drill head, the workers lowered a heat-resistant microphone - and with its help recorded sounds reminiscent of human screams. One of the employees put forward a version that this the screams of sinners in hell.

How true are these stories? It is technically difficult to place a microphone instead of a drill, but it is possible. True, work on its descent can 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 employees of the well actually heard strange noises, which regularly came from the depths. And what it could be, no one knew for sure.

At the suggestion of Finnish journalists, the world press published a number of articles claiming that the Kola Superdeep is a "road to hell." mystical meaning they began to attribute to the fact that the USSR collapsed, when the drillers were sinking the "unfortunate" thirteenth thousand meters.

In 1995, when the station had already been mothballed, an incomprehensible explosion occurred 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 out of the bowels of the Earth through a man-made passage to the surface (the publications were full of headlines like "Satan escaped from hell").

The director of the well, David Guberman, honestly admitted in his interview: he does not believe in hell and demons, but an incomprehensible explosion really took place, as well as strange noises resembling voices. Moreover, a survey conducted after the explosion showed that all equipment in 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 part of the equipment was dismantled. The ground part of the well is a building the size of a 12-storey building, now it is abandoned and is gradually being destroyed. 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 managed the well, its restoration would cost 100 million rubles.

But oh scientific papers at depth, it is no longer a question: on the basis of this facility, one can only open an institute or another 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 XX century" No. 5 2017

In 1970, just in time for Lenin's 100th birthday, Soviet scientists launched one of the most ambitious projects of our time. On 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 over twenty years. He brought a lot interesting discoveries, entered 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 movie.

THE USSR. Kola Peninsula. October 1, 1980. Leading well drillers reaching a record depth of 10,500 meters

entrance to hell

During its heyday, the drilling rig on the Kola Peninsula was a cyclopean structure 20-story high. Up to three thousand people worked here per shift. The team was led by leading geologists of the country. 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 spread. By all measures, the drilling was remarkably successful. No one in the world has yet managed to reach such a depth - Soviet geologists lowered the drill more than 12 kilometers.

Sudden termination 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, the drill was repeatedly taken out 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 who monitored the instrument readings complained of feelings of 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 the work was stopped, a powerful explosion occurred at the drilling rig. Nobody understood what could explode there, even the head of the entire project, a prominent geologist David Guberman.

Today, excursions are led to an abandoned drilling rig and they tell tourists a fascinating story about how scientists drilled a hole in underworld the dead. As moaning ghosts roam the installation, and in the evening demons crawl out to the surface and strive to sneak into the abyss of a gaping extreme seeker.

underground moon

In fact, the whole story with the “well to hell” was invented by Finnish journalists by April 1st. Their comic article was reprinted by American newspapers, and the duck flew to the masses. Long-term drilling of the Kola superdeep proceeded without any mysticism. But what happened there in reality was more interesting than any legends.

To begin with, ultra-deep drilling by definition was doomed to numerous accidents. Under the yoke of gigantic pressure (up to 1000 atmospheres) and high temperatures, the drills could not withstand, the well was clogged, the pipes that strengthened the vent were broken. Countless times the narrow well was bent so that new branches had to be drilled.

The worst accident occurred shortly after the main triumph of geologists. In 1982, they were able to overcome the mark of 12 kilometers. 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 a fantastic depth that mankind had never reached before.

After the celebration, drilling continued. However, the break in work proved fatal. In 1984, the most terrible accident occurred at the drilling rig. As many as five kilometers of pipes came off and hammered the well. It was impossible to continue drilling. The results of five years of work were lost overnight.

I had to resume drilling from the 7-kilometer mark. Only in 1990, geologists again managed to cross over 12 kilometers. 12,262 meters - this is the final depth of the Kola well.

But in parallel with the terrible accidents, incredible discoveries also followed. Deep drilling is an analogue of a time machine. On the Kola Peninsula, the oldest rocks, whose age exceeds 3 billion years, come to the surface. Climbing deeper and deeper, scientists have gained a clear idea of ​​​​what happened on our planet during its youth.

First of all, it turned out that the traditional scheme of the geological section, compiled by scientists, does not correspond to reality. “Up to 4 kilometers, everything went according to theory, and then the doomsday began,” Huberman later said.

According to calculations, having drilled a layer of granite, it was supposed to get to even harder, basalt rocks. But there was no basalt. After the granite came loose layered rocks, which constantly crumbled and made it difficult to move inland.

But among the 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. Huge deposits of methane have been found at even greater depths. This clarified the question of the origin of hydrocarbons - oil and gas.

And at a depth of more than 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 coincides with the composition of the rocks they mined at a depth of 3 kilometers. How was it 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. It is possible that this piece came off in the area of ​​the current Kola Peninsula.

The final

So why did they close the Kola Superdeep?

Firstly, the main tasks of the scientific expedition were completed. Unique equipment for drilling at great depths was created, tested under extreme conditions and noticeably improved. The collected rock samples were studied and described in detail. The Kola well helped to understand the structure much better earth's crust and the history of our planet.

Secondly, time itself was not conducive to such ambitious projects. In 1992, the scientific expedition was closed funding. Employees quit and went home. But even today, the grandiose building of the drilling rig and the mysterious well impress with 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 - this is how you should use it!” exclaimed David Huberman.

Despite the fact that the 21st century is in the yard, internal structure Our planet has been studied very little. We know quite well about what is happening in deep space, at the same time, the degree of penetration into the secrets of the Earth can be compared with a light pin prick in the surface of a watermelon peel.
In the mid-1950s, when drillers learned how to make wells more than 7 km deep, humanity approached the implementation of a very ambitious task - to penetrate the earth's crust and see what is hidden under it. Our compatriots, who drilled the Kola super-deep well, came closest to this goal.
The solid shell of the Earth is surprisingly thin in relation to its size - the thickness of the crust varies between 20-65 km on land and 3-8 km under the ocean, occupying less than 1% of the planet's volume. Behind it is a vast layer - the mantle - which accounts for the bulk of the Earth. Even lower is a dense core, consisting mainly of iron, as well as nickel, lead, uranium and other metals. Between the crust and the mantle, a boundary zone stands out, named after the Yugoslav scientist who discovered it, the surface (border) of Mohorovich, or in short - Moho. In this zone, the propagation velocity of seismic waves increases sharply. There are a number of hypotheses designed to explain this phenomenon, but in general it remains unsolved.

The most important target of the most serious deep drilling projects launched in the second half of the 20th century was precisely this mysterious layer. The researchers failed to reach it, however, the data on the structure of the earth's crust, obtained during the drilling of ultra-deep wells, turned out to be so unexpected that the Mokhorovich boundary seemed to fade into the background. First, it was necessary to explain the riddles found in the higher layers.
The Americans were the first to start deep drilling of the earth's crust for scientific purposes. In the 1960s, they launched the Mohole scientific project, which involved the creation of underwater drilling ships using special drilling ships. Over the next thirty years, more than 800 wells appeared in the seas and oceans, many of which are located at depths of more than 4 km. The longest borehole was able to penetrate only 800 m into the seabed, and yet the data obtained were of tremendous significance for geology. In particular, they served as a weighty confirmation of the so-called. tectonic theory, according to which the continents are based on solid lithospheric plates, slowly floating, immersed in a liquid mantle.

Of course, the USSR could not lag behind its overseas competitor, so in the mid-1960s we launched numerous projects to study the earth's crust. Soviet scientists took a slightly different path, deciding to drill wells not in the sea, but on land. The most famous and successful project of this kind is the Kola Superdeep Well, the deepest “hole in the ground” ever made by man. The well is located at the northern tip of the Kola Peninsula. This place was not chosen by chance - for hundreds of millions of years, natural erosion destroyed the surface of the Kola crystalline shield, ripping off the upper layers of rock from it. As a result, ancient Archean layers appeared on the surface, corresponding to depths of 5-10 km for the average section of the earth's crust of the continental type. The 15-kilometer design depth of the well allowed scientists to hope to reach the mysterious surface of Mohorovich.
Drilling of the Kola well began in 1970, and it ended more than 20 years later - in 1994. At first, the drillers worked using quite traditional methods: a string of light-alloy pipes was lowered into the well, at the end of which a cylindrical metal drill with diamond teeth and sensors was fixed. The column was rotated by an engine located on the surface. As the depth of the well increased, new sections were added to the pipes. Periodically, the entire column had to be lifted to the surface in order to extract the cut core of the rock and replace the blunt bit. Unfortunately, this proven technology becomes ineffective when the depth of the well exceeds a certain point: the friction of the pipes against the walls of the well becomes too great to turn this whole huge shaft. To overcome this difficulty, the engineers developed a scheme in which only the head of the drilling rig rotated. At the end of the column, turbines were strengthened through which drilling fluid was passed - a special liquid that acts as a lubricant and circulates through the pipes. These turbines made the drill rotate.

The samples brought to the surface during the drilling process have revolutionized geology. The existing ideas about the structure of the earth's crust turned out to be far from reality. The first surprise was the lack of transition from granite to basalt, which scientists expected to see at a depth of about 6 km. Seismological studies indicate that in this area the speed of propagation of acoustic waves changes dramatically, which was interpreted as the beginning of the basalt basement of the earth's crust. However, even after the transition zone, granites and gneisses continued to rise to the surface. From that moment it became clear that the prevailing model of a two-layered earth's crust was wrong. Now the presence of a seismic transition is explained by a change in the properties of the rock under conditions of increased pressure and temperature.
An even more surprising discovery was the fact that rocks located at depths of more than 9 km turned out to be extremely porous. Prior to this, it was believed that as the depth and pressure increase, they, on the contrary, should become more and more dense. Filled miniature cracks water solution whose origin for a long time remained completely unclear. Later, a theory was put forward, according to which the discovered water is formed from hydrogen and oxygen atoms, which are “squeezed out” from the surrounding rock under the influence of colossal pressures.
Another surprise: life on planet Earth arose, it turns out, 1.5 billion years earlier than expected. At a depth of 6.7 km, where it was believed that there was no organic matter, 14 types of fossilized microorganisms were found. They were found in highly uncharacteristic carbon-nitrogen deposits (instead of the usual limestone or silica) that are over 2.8 billion years old. At even greater depths, where there are no longer sedimentary rocks, methane appeared in huge concentrations. This completely and utterly destroyed the theory biological origin hydrocarbons such as oil and gas.
Scientists were also extremely surprised by the speed with which the temperature increased as the well deepened. At a mark of 7 km it reached 120 °C, and at a depth of 12 km - already 230 °C, which was a third higher than the planned value: the temperature gradient of the crust was almost 20 degrees per 1 km, instead of the expected 16. It was also found that half of the heat flux is of radiogenic origin. Heat negatively affected the work of the bit, so the drilling fluid began to be cooled before being pumped into the well. This measure turned out to be quite effective, however, after passing the mark of 12 km, it was no longer able to provide sufficient heat removal. In addition, the compressed and heated rock acquired some properties of a liquid, as a result of which the well began to swim during the next extraction of the drill string. Further progress turned out to be impossible without new technological solutions and significant financial costs, so in 1994 drilling was suspended. By that time, the well had deepened to 12,262 m.

Soil studies prove: the moon broke away from the Kola Peninsula

Kola superdeep in section

Kola Superdeep

Allegedly, on the approach to 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 this. A few seconds after the appearance of a terrible sound, an explosion thundered ...

Space under your feet

In the late 70s and early 80s, getting a job at the Kola Superdeep, as the inhabitants of the village of Zapolyarny in the Murmansk region call the well familiarly, was more difficult than getting into the cosmonaut corps. From hundreds of applicants, one or two were selected. Together with the order for employment, 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 working at the well at the same time, each the size of an average plant. Only the Germans dug the earth with such persistence, 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 mankind much better than what is under the earth's crust a few kilometers from us. The Kola Superdeep is a kind of telescope into the mysterious inner world planets.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, it has been believed that the Earth consists of a crust, a mantle, and a core. At the same time, no one really could tell where one layer ends and the next one begins. Scientists did not even know what, in fact, these layers consist of. Some 40 years ago, they were sure that the layer of granites starts at a depth of 50 meters and continues up to 3 kilometers, and then basalts come. It was expected to meet the mantle at a depth of 15–18 kilometers. In reality, everything turned out to be completely different. And although school textbooks still write that the Earth consists of three layers, scientists from the Kola Superdeep proved 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 those 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 go under the ocean floor and the mantle is located at a depth of about 5 kilometers under a four-kilometer water column. Alas, not a single ocean drilling rig has penetrated deeper than 3 kilometers. In general, almost all ultra-deep well projects mysteriously ended at a depth of three kilometers. It was at this moment that something strange began to happen to the Boers: either they fell into unexpected super-hot areas, or they seemed to be bitten off by some unprecedented monster. Deeper than 3 kilometers, only 5 wells broke through, 4 of them were Soviet. And only the Kola Superdeep was destined to overcome the mark of 7 kilometers.

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

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

Conqueror of the Deep

Appearance The Kola drilling rig is capable of disappointing the layman. The well does not look like a mine that our imagination draws for us. There are no descents underground, only a drill with a diameter of a little more than 20 centimeters goes into the thickness. An imaginary section of the Kola super-deep well looks like a thin needle that has pierced the earth's thickness. A drill with numerous sensors, located at the end of the needle, is raised and lowered over several days. Faster is impossible: 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 dungeon can be seriously frightening. The sounds coming from below are indeed like screams and howls. To this can be added long list accidents that haunted the Kola Superdeep when it reached a depth of 10 kilometers. Twice the drill was taken out melted, although the temperatures from which it can melt are comparable to the temperature of the surface of the Sun. Once the cable seemed to be pulled from below - and cut off. Subsequently, when drilling in the same place, no remnants of the cable were found. What caused these and many other accidents is still a mystery. However, they were not at all the reason for stopping the drilling of the bowels of the Baltic Shield.

12,000 meters of discovery and some hell

“We have the deepest hole in the world - this is how you should use it!” - bitterly exclaims the permanent director of the research and production center "Kola Superdeep" David Guberman. 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 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 order and study previously extracted rock samples.

Huberman recalls with regret how much 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. “Up to 4 kilometers, everything went according to theory, and then the doomsday began,” says Huberman. Theorists have promised that the temperature of the Baltic Shield will 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 frying stronger than 2200C - 1000C higher than predicted. The Kola drillers questioned the theory of the layered structure of the earth's crust - at least in the range up to 12,262 meters. We were taught at school: there are young rocks, granites, basalts, a mantle and a core. But the granites turned out to be 3 kilometers lower than expected. Next were the basalts. They weren't found at all. All drilling took place in the granite layer. This is an extremely 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.

Another surprise: life on planet Earth arose, it turns out, 1.5 billion years earlier than expected. At depths where it was believed that there was no organic matter, 14 types 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 utterly destroyed the theory of the biological origin of hydrocarbons such as oil and gas.

Demons

There were also almost fantastic sensations. When in the late 70s the Soviet automatic space station brought to Earth 124 grams of lunar soil, the researchers of the Kola Science Center found that it is 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 research to future generations.

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

"When me about this mysterious history began to ask questions at UNESCO, I did not 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 here. A very strange noise was recorded, then there was an explosion ... A few days later, nothing of the kind was found at the same depth, ”recalls Academician David Huberman.

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 storehouse 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. Perhaps in the near future humanity will be able to take advantage of this wealth.

"Dr. Huberman, what the hell did you dig down there?" - a remark from the audience interrupted the report of the Russian scientist at the UNESCO meeting in Australia. A couple of weeks earlier, in April 1995, a wave of reports swept the world about a mysterious accident at the Kola superdeep well.

Allegedly, on the approach to 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 this. A few seconds after the appearance of a terrible sound, an explosion thundered ...

Space under your feet

In the late 70s and early 80s, getting a job at the Kola Superdeep, as the inhabitants of the village of Zapolyarny in the Murmansk region call the well familiarly, was more difficult than getting into the cosmonaut corps. From hundreds of applicants, one or two were selected. Together with the order for employment, 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 working at the well at the same time, each the size of an average plant. Only the Germans dug the earth with such persistence, 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 mankind much better than what is under the earth's crust a few kilometers from us. The Kola Superdeep is a kind of telescope into the mysterious inner world of the planet.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, it has been believed that the Earth consists of a crust, a mantle, and a core. At the same time, no one really could tell where one layer ends and the next one begins. Scientists did not even know what, in fact, these layers consist of. Some 40 years ago, they were sure that the layer of granites starts at a depth of 50 meters and continues up to 3 kilometers, and then basalts come. It was expected to meet the mantle at a depth of 15–18 kilometers. In reality, everything turned out to be completely different. And although school textbooks still write that the Earth consists of three layers, scientists from the Kola Superdeep proved 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 those 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 go under the ocean floor and the mantle is located at a depth of about 5 kilometers under a four-kilometer water column. Alas, not a single ocean drilling rig has penetrated deeper than 3 kilometers.

In general, almost all ultra-deep well projects mysteriously ended at a depth of three kilometers. It was at this moment that something strange began to happen to the Boers: either they fell into unexpected super-hot areas, or they seemed to be bitten off by some unprecedented monster. Deeper than 3 kilometers, only 5 wells broke through, 4 of them were Soviet. And only the Kola Superdeep was destined to overcome the mark of 7 kilometers.

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

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

Conqueror of the Deep

The appearance of the Kola drilling rig is capable of disappointing the layman. The well does not look like a mine that our imagination draws for us. There are no descents underground, only a drill with a diameter of a little more than 20 centimeters goes into the thickness. An imaginary section of the Kola super-deep well looks like a thin needle that has pierced the earth's thickness. A drill with numerous sensors, located at the end of the needle, is raised and lowered over several days. Faster is impossible: the strongest composite cable can break under its own weight.

What happens in the depths is not known for certain. Ambient temperature, noise and other parameters are transmitted upward with a minute delay. However, drillers say that even such contact with the dungeon can be seriously frightening. The sounds coming from below are indeed like screams and howls. To this we can add a long list of accidents that haunted the Kola superdeep when it reached a depth of 10 kilometers. Twice the drill was taken out melted, although the temperatures from which it can melt are comparable to the temperature of the surface of the Sun. Once the cable seemed to be pulled from below - and cut off. Subsequently, when drilling in the same place, no remnants of the cable were found. What caused these and many other accidents is still a mystery. However, they were not at all the reason for stopping the drilling of the bowels of the Baltic Shield.

12,226 meters of discoveries and some hell

“We have the deepest hole in the world - this is how you should use it!” - bitterly exclaims the permanent director of the research and production center "Kola Superdeep" David Huberman. In the first 30 years of the existence of the Kola Superdeep, Soviet and then Russian scientists broke through to a depth of 12,226 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 order 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. “Up to 4 kilometers, everything went according to theory, and then the doomsday began,” says Guberman. Theorists have promised that the temperature of the Baltic Shield will 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 70 ºC, at seven - over 120 ºC, and at a depth of 12 it was roasting more than 220 ºC - 100 ºC higher than predicted. The Kola drillers questioned the theory of the layered structure of the earth's crust - at least in the range up to 12,262 meters.

We were taught at school: there are young rocks, granites, basalts, a mantle and a core. But the granites turned out to be 3 kilometers lower than expected. Next were the basalts. They weren't found at all. All drilling took place in the granite layer. This is an extremely 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.

Another surprise: life on planet Earth arose, it turns out, 1.5 billion years earlier than expected. At depths where it was believed that there was no organic matter, 14 types 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.

Demons

There were also almost fantastic sensations. When in the late 70s the Soviet automatic space station brought 124 grams of lunar soil to Earth, the researchers of 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.

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

“When I was asked about this mysterious story at UNESCO, I did not 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 here. A very strange noise was recorded, then there was an explosion ... A few days later, nothing of the kind was found at the same depth, ”recalls Academician David Huberman.

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 storehouse of all kinds of minerals, in particular gold. A real olivine belt, 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. Perhaps in the near future humanity will be able to take advantage of this wealth.