A quick drone exploration of Remote Russian landscapes. Sites included: "Dombay, North Osetia, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Altay, Kola Peninsula, lake Baikal, Karelia"
Kola Superdeep borehole It is quite hard to imagine that under this metal cap is actually the world deepest borehole! In 1970 the Soviets started drilling the Kola Superdeep Borehole (Russian: Кольская сверхглубокая скважина) on the Kola peninsula of northern Russia. In 1989 the deepest point was reached at 12,262m. In comparison the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana trench is 10,911m deep and the continental crust is around 35km thick. So, why did they stop drilling? Well, temperatures at 12,262m were much higher than expected. Instead of the expected 100 °C it was 180 °C, they calculated that at a depth of 15,000m (the depth they were expected to reach in 1993) temperatures would be 300°C. In addition, the pressure at these depths would have been too much for the drill to handle. Since the purpose of the borehole was to understand the nature of the earth’s crust, some interesting facts came to the surface. Scientists expected to find the so-called boundary of granite to basalt at 4-9km depth. What they found however was a fractured area that had been thoroughly saturated with water, which is remarkable at this depth. Also, fossils were found at depths of 6,7km and rather than covered in typical limestone and silica covering these had a carbon or nitrogen covering. The oldest rocks they hit were more than 2,5 billion years old. Lotte Geeven a Dutch artist, has actually partnered up with the geologists and engineers of another superdeep borehole, the German Continental Deep Drilling Program, to discover what it sounds like at these extreme depth in the earth’s crust (you can hear it here: http://wrd.cm/1nnNic3) In 1989 a Finnish newspaper, Ammenusastian, supposedly reported that a special microphone designed to detect tectonic plate movement was lowered down and recorded the cries of damned souls. Thus, this was seen (by certain Christian groups) as evidence that the Russians were drilling through the gates of hell.. Since 2008 Kola is not the longest borehole anymore. First Qatar’s Al Shaheen oil well reached a length of 12,289m and in 2011 the Russians (again) managed to drill offshore the island of Sakhalin to a length of 12,345m. The differences are not that big. -OW- Image: Courtesy of Rakot14. This is actually the Kola Superdeep borehole. It was welded shut in 2005. Since 2008 the site has been abandoned. References and further reading: http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/AdamCassino.shtml http://www2.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF7/725.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2014/05/08/kola_superdeep_borehole_is_the_world_s_deepest_hole.html http://wrd.cm/1nnNic3
Sacred heart and holy cross On Good Friday we posted a beautiful cross formed of two twinned staurolite crystals (seehttp://tinyurl.com/qdepgco). In this specimen, four crystals have twinned in two different ways to produce this beautiful ensemble. It measures 2,5 x 2,2 x 1 cm and comes from Pestsovye Keivy in Russia's Kola Penisula. Our past posts on twinned crystals:http://tinyurl.com/mvbojuj http://tinyurl.com/l8yba54,http://tinyurl.com/ntdtdb6, http://tinyurl.com/nr7cq6n,http://tinyurl.com/kp6nluf and http://tinyurl.com/nr7cq6n Loz Image credit: Rob Lavinsky/iRocks.com
Kola Drill Hole: the deepest artificial hole in the world at 12.262 km deep. While the USSR and the USA were engaged in the Space Race during the 1960’s, they were also engaged in a race to the centre of the Earth. The USA came up with Project Mohole, while the USSR’s project culminated in the Kola Drill Hole.
The project began in 1962 and drilling began in 1970. The technology for mining at such depths was not available then or now; therefore the Russians devised an innovation where instead of turning the drill bit by rotating the stem, only the drill bit at the end was rotated (photo shows the drill bit used). This was achieved by forcing the drilling mud through the drill bit. The drill was halted in 1994, after 24 years of chewing through the earth. Some of the discoveries from the drill hole: -the expected transition from granite to basalt at 3-6km below the surface was not there – instead there was metamorphic rock -microscopic fossils were found as deep as 6.7km below the surface in rocks more than 2 billion years old – 24 distinct species of plankton, with coverings of carbon and nitrogen rather than limestone or silica -the temperature rose quickly as the borehole deepened – at 12km the temperature reached 180°C -the last of the cores taken from the borehole were dated at 2.7 billion years old -TEL Read more: http://www.damninteresting.com/the-deepest-hole/, http://atlasobscura.com/place/kola-superdeep-borehole