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posted by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link

Earth’s Holes

From XKCD, a tour of some of the Earth’s deepest and most notable holes, including mines, caves, boreholes, subway stations, lakes, tunnels, neutrino detectors, and, of course, the Mariana Trench.

I was surprised to learn that a pair of boreholes, the Kola Superdeep Borehole and the Deepwater Horizon Borehole, are actually deeper than the Mariana Trench. Explain XKCD has more info on each of the various holes, including the truly bonkers Cave of Crystals in Mexico.

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David Greenfield

Stuff you should know just did an episode on the Kola hole last week!  https://stuffyoushouldknow.com/episode/kola-the-worlds-deepest-hole/

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Kim D. Edited

Listened to this earlier... then an urge took me to the wikipedia page for Kola... and then I learned about Well from Hell... what a fun read! Link

The legend holds that a team of Soviet engineers purportedly led by an individual named "Mr. Azakov" in an unnamed place in Siberia had drilled a hole that was 14.4 km (9 miles) deep before breaking through to a cavity. Intrigued by this unexpected discovery, they lowered an extremely heat-tolerant microphone, along with other sensory equipment, into the well. The temperature deep within was 1,000 °C (1,800 °F), heat from a chamber of fire from which screaming could be heard.

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James Risley Edited

I had no idea that Deepwater Horizon was so deep before this. I mostly know it for that other thing...

Also, ExplainXKCD is such a great site, and I'm so glad that volunteers keep it running so I can dive into these kind of rabbit holes! https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/1uv4ten/update_on_explainxkcd/

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Mike Riley

I'm no drilling expert but I don't understand how you can spin a pipe that is 6 miles long. I would think the metal would seem very elastic at those lengths.

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Mike F.

I'm no expert either, but my assumption is that you basically make an ever-deeper pothole: drill a hole, put some walls up to hold its shape, punch water at the rock at the bottom of your hole, flush it out. Repeat as necessary. 

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Jason KottkeMOD

Ok, you both have homework to find out how deep holes are drilled and report back.

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Emily

I asked my husband, who used to work as a technician for a company that manufactured drilling rigs. He says you don't spin a pipe that's 6 miles long. You drill at the end. His quick explanation:

"Hold the pipe steady. Force high-pressure fluid down the center to a hydraulic motor. The cuttings return up the annulus. Clean the cuttings. Repeat. It only takes $20-25M to get all the equipment."

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Jason KottkeMOD

Thank you, Emily. But these guys aren't off the hook. They need to pay their "I'm no expert but..." tax.

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Mike F.

Fair enough, Jason.

Me: drill a hole, put some walls up to hold its shape, punch water at the rock at the bottom of your hole, flush it out. Repeat as necessary.

Expert: Force high-pressure fluid down the center to a hydraulic motor. The cuttings return up the annulus. Clean the cuttings. Repeat.

I'm gonna say that I pretty much nailed it. 😉

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