In 1970, the Soviet Union tried to dig through the earth, but when it was dug 12,262 meters underground, the workers did not dare to continue digging, and even the detected gold mine layer was not mined. Then the deep well was sealed with an iron cover, as if it was covering up some secret.
This deep well is called "Kora Ultra-Deep Drilling". It is a relatively famous scientific research achievement in the Soviet Union. At that time, the Soviet Union spent more than ten years drilling 12,262 meters down.
But then it suddenly stopped. Some people said that the Soviet Union dug up the "Gate of Hell" and there were terrible things inside, so they didn't dare to continue digging down. So what is the truth?
Why did the Soviet Union want to dig through the earth? What do you want to get from it?
Let’s talk about the historical background at that time. After the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union rose rapidly and became two "superpowers" in the world. As the saying goes, "One mountain cannot accommodate two tigers." Both the Soviet Union and the United States want to be the world's bosses.
So, starting from 1947, the Soviet Union and the United States officially entered the "Cold War" period. Although they don’t like each other, they do not have a head-on conflict. Instead, they confront each other from military, political, scientific research and other aspects to show their strong strength and force the other party to admit defeat.
The United States has an atomic bomb, and the Soviet Union developed it without being outdone; the United States established a "NATO" military alliance, and the Soviet Union turned around and established a "Warcraft Treaty" military alliance. The lineups of both sides were equal, and no one was willing to show weakness.
Later, a scientific research competition began between the two countries, comparing who "goes to heaven" first. The Soviet Union first launched the first artificial satellite, but the United States achieved the first human landing on the moon. In 1969, Armstrong successfully landed on the moon.
Seeing that it was slightly inferior in the "Sky" competition, the Soviet Union, who was not willing to be outdone, thought of "Zhidao". Since God cannot compare with you, I will find my face in the "Zhidao" competition and see who digs deeper.
So, the Soviet Union's "super drilling" program was launched, and they were determined to detect the Moholovich discontinuous surface (the boundary between the crust and the mantle) before the United States.
In May 1970, this huge project began. The location of the drilling was chosen on the Kora Peninsula, with hundreds of scientists and staff. They firmly believe that this time they will definitely beat the United States and win back the face lost in the space race.
In order to stimulate the enthusiasm of the staff, the Soviet Union gave them very high benefits. Not only were each given a Moscow apartment, but their monthly salary was also able to meet the annual salary of university professors at that time.
Under the influence of material incentives, scientists and staff worked hard, and the preliminary work was indeed relatively smooth and they did not encounter too many difficulties.
When they drilled to a depth of 9500 meters underground, they also found unexpected discoveries. At that time, the drill bit drilled into a gold mine layer, and the staff quickly collected samples from the mine layer and handed them over to the scientists.
When scientists obtained the analysis results, they all felt incredible that the gold content of this gold layer actually reached 80 grams per ton. Everyone thought they were going to get rich and were very excited.
You should know that the gold content in the ore layer reaches 4 grams per ton, which is already mining value. Now the gold content of this ore layer has increased by 20 times, so everyone is very excited.
However, in the end they did not mine this gold layer. On the one hand, it is because the location is too deep, and it will take nearly ten years to drill a hole just by drilling, and it may take hundreds of years to fully exploit it.
Another important reason is that their main task is to dig the ground. After all, this well is responsible for "winning glory for the country". In the face of national honor, gold has to stand aside.
The digging speed was indeed very fast at the beginning. By 1983, the Soviet Union had drilled 12,000 meters down. But from then on, the Soviet Union's speed of drilling into the ground slowed down and they encountered great difficulties.
is the first problem with the drill bit, because the higher the drilling temperature, the higher the temperature. According to the increase of 3 degrees Celsius per 100 meters of the ground temperature gradient, when it reaches 12,000 meters, the underground temperature has been several hundred degrees, which is a huge loss for the drill bit.
often hasn't started drilling for long, and the drill bit is scrapped due to high temperature problems.You should know that it is very troublesome to replace the drill bit if it breaks. It is more than 10,000 meters underground. It usually takes several days or even half a month to pull the drill bit up. Frequent replacement of drill bits has greatly delayed the progress of drilling.
Secondly, there is also the problem of drill pipe. Drill rods that are up to 10,000 meters long are basically welded by many sections of drill rods, which are not very solid in themselves. In addition, the drilling depth exceeds 10,000 meters, even a drill pipe as hard as a hard will deform at such a long distance.
In other words, the drill rod will bend in the drilling well and may not move forward straight, so the drill rod may break. If the drill pipe breaks, it will take a lot of time to replace it.
Therefore, under such difficult conditions, the drilling depth increased by only 262 meters in a full decade from 1983 to 1993. Subsequently, the project was stopped and all the staff on the construction site evacuated almost overnight.
Because the Soviet Union suddenly stopped drilling downward, the outside world has been speculating about this, and the most circulating is the saying "Gate of Hell".
At that time, people nearby said that the reason why the Soviet Union suddenly stopped drilling was because they dug up something terrible. When they reached 12,262 meters, some strange sounds came from the hole, which aroused the curiosity of scientists and staff.
To find out these strange sounds, scientists put a precision radio down through a steel rope to detect. When the radio was brought up and turned on, everyone was frightened when they heard the sound inside.
They heard screams similar to humans from the radio, which were very cunning, and the sound was chilling.
Then some people thought that this was digging up the "Gate of Hell". These calls were a warning to humans. If they continued to dig, they would likely release the terrifying creatures underground.
The staff quickly evacuated the construction site, and even some equipment did not have time to move out. Then, the 12,262-meter-deep well was covered with a heavy iron lid, as if something was sealing.
In order to record this drilling project, someone wrote down the drilling depth on the manhole cover, but he made a mistake and wrote 12262 meters into 12226 meters.
So, what is the authenticity of the "Gate of Hell" event? Although the incident of
has been widely circulated, the Soviet Union has never officially responded to this matter. In other words, the "Gate of Hell" incident is likely to be fabricated and has no factual support.
52 years later, from the historical background at that time, the reason why the Soviet Union stopped drilling was more due to insufficient funds.
At that time, the Soviet Union had disintegrated, its strength had been greatly reduced, and there was no sufficient financial support to continue digging. And with the end of the Cold War, there was no need for the Soviet Union to carry out the drilling plan.
In addition to this, technical reasons cannot be ignored. From 1983 to 1993, it was only 262 meters down. According to the technology at that time, it could not solve the problems of high temperatures and drill pipes. Even if it continued to dig down, it made almost no progress.
Therefore, technology restrictions combined with insufficient funds led to the Soviet Union's suspension of this plan.
If the Soviet Union had sufficient funds at that time, would it be possible to dig through the earth?
At that time, the Soviet Union decided to dig the ground, mainly to suppress the United States. Even if the Soviet Union had sufficient funds at that time, or if the United States and the Soviet Union joined forces to dig down, they could not dig through the earth at all. There are three reasons:
1. There is a high temperature of 6000 degrees inside the earth, and the drill bit cannot withstand
The earth is like an onion, with many layers inside, from the outside to the inside, the crust, mantle, and core.
As the underground depth increases, the temperature will also increase accordingly. Below the room temperature layer, the ground temperature gradually increases with the depth. The average depth is 100 meters, and the temperature increases by 3℃.
①. The outermost layer of the earth is called crust , with an average depth of 17,000 meters. This layer contains rich chemical elements, the most chemical element is oxygen, accounting for 48.6% of the total weight.
The thickness of the earth's crust is different. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the thickest place in the earth's crust, with a thickness of more than 70 kilometers, while the Mariana Trench is the thinnest place in the earth's crust.
②. The intermediate layer of the earth is mantle , with a thickness of about 2,900 kilometers. It is mainly composed of dense lithogenic materials. It is the largest and largest layer on the earth. The temperature at its junction with the earth's core is about 3,500 degrees Celsius.
③. The innermost layer of the earth is the core of the earth . The radius of the core reaches 3480 kilometers. The temperature of the core is as high as 6,000 degrees Celsius. Even carbonaceous sulfide, which is three times harder than diamond, will melt immediately when put in, and cannot withstand such high temperatures.
The core of the earth is the core part of the earth. The maximum radius from the surface to the core can reach 6,400 kilometers. The core is filled with hot magma, and the pressure inside is also very high.
So, if you want to dig through the earth, you must pass through the core. However, with current technology, drill bits and drill rods that can withstand high temperatures of 6,000 degrees can not be made, so it is difficult to dig through the earth.
2. The earth is too thick and can’t be dug through
In addition to the high temperature, there is no tool to resist high temperature, there is another reason that the earth is too thick.
The Soviets have dug for nearly twenty years and have only dug 12,262 meters down. You should know that the average depth of the outermost crust of the earth is 17,000 meters. In other words, the Soviets did not even dig through the earth's crust, and they could not imagine it when they dug it to the ground.
Moreover, the earth's crust is only the outermost layer, and the thinnest layer. The diameter of the entire earth is about 13,000 kilometers. The Soviets only dug 0.1% of the thickness of the entire earth, which is 0.1%. The Soviet Union has dug for about 20 years.
Even if one day humans have tools to dig through the earth, according to the Soviet excavation progress, it will take tens of thousands of years to complete.
If the earth is dug through, what consequences will it bring to humans?
is an amazing thing to be able to dig through the earth, but in fact it is a major event that endangers the safety of all mankind's lives. If the earth is really dug through, these terrible consequences will occur:
1. Magma eruption in the core
For the earth, it is equivalent to a closed sphere. Not only is the temperature high, but the pressure is also very high. You can imagine that once the pressure cooker is dug to the core, it is equivalent to opening a hole in the pressure cooker, and the huge pressure will quickly eject the liquid substance inside.
However, what is sprayed out of the pressure cooker is gas, while what is sprayed out of the ground core is magma with high temperatures of several thousand degrees. At that time, magma will gush out and a large number of animals and plants will die in the high temperature.
2. The earth may deviate from its trajectory
In addition to a large number of magma eruptions, there may be more terrifying things. After the earth is dug through, the internal air pressure will be unstable. It is very likely that the earth's trajectory will change. If it deviates from its original trajectory, it is very likely to impact other celestial bodies.
3. The earth's magnetic field will be unstable, and various precision instruments may fail
The movement of the earth's core also affects the magnetic field on the earth. If the earth's core is dug through and the internal pressure is released, the state of the earth's core may change.
Once the core of the earth changes, the magnetic field on the earth will also change. At that time, many precision instruments will fail, some animals will be unable to distinguish directions, and human life will be seriously affected.
Finally, if the earth is really dug through, it may not be good news for humans, but will cause a series of terrible consequences. But there is no need to worry. As far as the current technological level is concerned, it is still difficult to dig through the earth.
