THE Kola Super Proofru in Russia, it is famous for being the deepest artificial hole ever dug a feat of Soviet engineering. But why was this ambitious scientific project interrupted and the abandoned place?
According to information gathered by the travel site and exploration The Travel, the answer is the result of a combination of Extreme technical challenges and deep geopolitical changes .
Launched in 1970, during the Cold War, the objective of the well was not to find resources, but to penetrate the terrestrial crust for scientific research, in a demonstration of technological capacity.
Over the course of two decades, the main drilling has reached the record brand of 12,262 meters . During the excavation, scientists made surprising discoveries, such as the unexpected presence of liquid water in great depths, microscopic fossils over billions of years and a different rock composition from that predicted by the geological models of the time.
However, the project faced an insurmountable obstacle: heat. Reports of the time indicate that temperatures at the bottom of the well reached About 180 ° C almost double the expected.
ADVERSE CLIMATE CONDITIONS
This intense heat damaged the drilling equipment, making the continuation of the work Extremely difficult and expensive . The final blow came with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which led to the drastic cut of state funding.
Without resources and in the face of hardly surface technical barriers, drilling was officially interrupted around 1992 .
The place was not actively “destroyed”, but, yes, abandoned. Over the years, surface structures have been broken due to lack of maintenance and adverse weather conditions. For security reasons, The well itself was permanently sealed with a metal lid welded around 2008.
Although Kola’s well had a premature end, he left an important scientific legacy providing unique data on the deep geology of the earth that remain relevant to researchers today.
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This content was originally published in why the deepest hole in the world had to be abandoned on CNN Brazil.
Source: CNN Brasil
Charles Grill is a tech-savvy writer with over 3 years of experience in the field. He writes on a variety of technology-related topics and has a strong focus on the latest advancements in the industry. He is connected with several online news websites and is currently contributing to a technology-focused platform.
