15 DEEPEST Holes on Earth
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Transcript
00:00Due to continual geological processes and of course human activity, our world's surface
00:06is covered in towering peaks and plunging depths.
00:10Prepare yourselves to see further within the planet than ever before as we explore the
00:15Top 15 Deepest Holes on Earth.
00:19Number 15.
00:20The Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah Located to the southwest of Salt Lake City
00:26in the Kira Mountains of Utah, the Bingham Canyon Mine, which is also known locally as
00:31the Kencott Copper Mine, is the deepest open-pit mine in the world.
00:36After beginning operations in 1906, it is believed to have produced the largest quantity
00:40of copper from a single mine anywhere in the world, with an estimated yield of being around
00:4519 million tons.
00:47Minerals were first discovered in the area in 1848, and people began digging into the
00:51ground the following decade, but it would be a further 40 years until significant works
00:56were able to begin.
00:58Since then, it has been in continual use and now measures 2.5 miles or 4 kilometers wide
01:04and 3 quarters of a mile or 1.2 kilometers deep.
01:08In total, it covers an area of just over 1,900 acres and is seen as so significant to the
01:13area that it was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
01:17As the largest artificial excavation in the world, the Bingham Canyon Mine is visible
01:22from orbit in space and continues to get even larger.
01:25With more than 2,000 employees, around 450,000 tons of material is removed from the pit every
01:32day, and the plan is for operations to continue well into the 2030s.
01:38Number 14.
01:39The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, Antarctica The more we learn about the wider universe,
01:46the more questions that are raised about how everything works, and it turns out that one
01:50of the best chances on Earth to detect one of the most evasive types of particle is a
01:54laboratory in Antarctica at the bottom of a series of deep artificial holes in the ice.
02:01Known as the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, it's located at the Edmondson Scott South
02:05Pole Station and is made up of 60 sensor modules that have each been lowered to depths of between
02:104,700 and 8,000 feet.
02:13Each of the holes were carved into the ice with hot water drills, and the entire project
02:17is estimated to have cost around $279 million.
02:21The neutrinos that it's designed to detect are notoriously difficult to find, as they
02:26rarely interact with any particles.
02:28Normally, many trillions of them pass through the Earth every minute, but occasionally they
02:33react with the molecules of water in ice.
02:36In the first three years of operation, the observatory announced they had seen the size
02:39of 28 neutrinos that originated beyond our solar system.
02:44This was seen as a remarkable achievement.
02:4713.
02:48The Kimberley Diamond Mine, South Africa Although today it looks like a large lake
02:54in a sinkhole, the Kimberley Diamond Mine was once one of the largest producers of the
02:59rare gemstones in the world and is often claimed to be the deepest hand-dug hole on Earth.
03:04The first diamonds were found on the site in 1871, which at the time was a farm owned
03:09by the De Beers brothers.
03:11There was a scramble to buy plots of land, and soon as many as 50,000 people were involved
03:15in digging the hole with picks and shovels between 1871 and 1914.
03:20Also known as the Big Hole, by the time it was believed to have had all of the diamonds
03:25removed, it had a surface area of 42 acres, was 1,519 feet wide and 790 feet deep.
03:33In total, 13.6 million carats of diamonds are thought to have been retrieved during
03:38that time, and this launched the De Beers company as one of the world's most famous
03:42diamond miners.
03:44Further exploration at the Kimberley Diamond Mine was seen as being too dangerous, so it
03:48was partially filled in and allowed to collect water, but further tunnels were subsequently
03:52dug beneath the main pit to depths of 3,600 feet.
03:57It's extraordinary that the main mine reached as low as it did without the technology that's
04:01available today and shows just how desperate people were at the time to have the opportunity
04:06to make their fortune.
04:09Number 12.
04:10The German Continental Deep Drilling Program, Bavaria, Germany.
04:15Not all holes are necessarily dug to retrieve valuable material, and several super-deep
04:20holes have been excavated in the name of science.
04:23One of the most recent is known as the KTB Borehole, and it was part of the German Continental
04:28Deep Drilling Program.
04:30Located near the town of Windeschenbach in Bavaria, Germany, the idea was to test new
04:35drilling methods and also to learn what the conditions are like deep within the Earth's
04:39crust.
04:40Work on the hole began in 1987, and by 1994, when drilling ended, it had reached a depth
04:45of 29,859 feet, or 9,101 meters, which is deeper than Mount Everest is tall.
04:53While the project was unable to reach the region at the base of the continental plate
04:57that was one of its objectives, it was widely seen as a resounding success, especially as
05:02the conditions that were encountered were very different from what had been expected.
05:07Temperatures rose far quicker and huge quantities of gas and liquid kept filling it up, whereas
05:12the predictions had expected rocks that were far more solid because of the compression
05:16from the material above.
05:18Once digging had ended, the hole was then repurposed for another use.
05:22Researchers installed a series of seismic sensors deep within it, and these were used
05:26to monitor the differences between readings there and on the surface.
05:30Now the huge derrick that was used is one of the largest ever constructed, and it's
05:34still in place, and it's become a popular tourist destination in the region.
05:3811.
05:39The Mirny Mine, Russia The Mirny Mine, which is also sometimes called
05:45the Mir Mine, is a huge open-pit diamond mine that can be found near the town of Mirny,
05:50which is in the Sakha Republic region of Siberia in Russia.
05:54Soviet scientists first found traces of a type of volcanic rock called kimberlite in
05:58the region in 1955, and this is usually a good indicator that diamonds may be present.
06:04Development of the mine began just two years later, and proved to be extremely difficult
06:07because the ground in the area would freeze during the winter and turn to slush in the
06:11summer.
06:12A processing plant had to be built on firmer ground 12 miles away from the actual mine.
06:18This restricted how productive the mine could actually be.
06:21Still at its peak, 10 million carats of diamonds were being retrieved from the mine every year,
06:26with a fifth of them being gem quality.
06:28Open-pit mining on the site ended in 2001, once the cost continued to far outweigh the
06:33return, and by this time it had a diameter of 3,900 feet or 1,200 meters, and a depth
06:38of 1,700 feet or about 525 meters.
06:42As is often the case with mines like these, there has been a long suspicion that there
06:46are still many more diamonds in the ground, and in 2009 an underground mine started operations
06:51on the site.
06:52It is now in constant use, digging far beneath the bottom of the Mirani Pit, and is expected
06:57to be open for at least another 40 years.
07:01Number 10.
07:02The Glomar Challenger Core Site, Mariana Trench
07:06The Glomar Challenger was an oceanographic drilling and coring ship that was a part of
07:10the deep-sea drilling project being operated by the U.S. between 1968 and 1983.
07:16Fitted with a 140-foot or 43-meter-high derrick on its deck, it was able to drill deep into
07:21the seafloor and was tasked with learning more about plate tectonics and deep-ocean
07:25salt domes that were believed to indicate the presence of oil reserves.
07:30The ship drilled holes in hundreds of sites around the world, but it was sites 453, 454,
07:35and 456 that were the most impressive.
07:38That's because those holes were dug in the floor of the Mariana Trench, which is the
07:42deepest naturally formed place on the planet.
07:45These holes themselves were drilled up to 2,000 feet or 605 meters deep, and the findings
07:51proved in part that the trench is actually widening at a predictable and regular rate.
07:56The work by the Glomar Challenger remains one of the most ambitious oceanographic studies
08:00to have ever been undertaken, and the holes that were drilled into the Mariana Trench
08:04remain some of the deepest excavations that humans have ever made.
08:10Number 9.
08:11Xiaojiai, Tiankeng The Shaanxi Cluster is a series of sinkholes
08:15in the Fengzhe County of the Chongqing Municipality of China and are some of the most spectacular
08:20natural features in the world.
08:22One of them, known as Xiaojiai, Tiankeng, is the deepest sinkhole to have ever been
08:26discovered, and it's not only a popular tourist spot, but it's been a culturally significant
08:31place to locals for hundreds of years.
08:33Often referred to as the Heavenly Pit, the sinkhole is 2,054 feet long, 1,762 feet wide,
08:41and up to 2,172 feet deep.
08:44Formed by an underwater river that has slowly eroded away at the limestone bedrock, the
08:49sinkhole actually has two caverns, one on top of the other, with an ever-widening open
08:53that connects the two.
08:55During the rainy season, water gushes into it over a waterfall, which creates an incredible
08:59vista and attracts thousands of visitors each year.
09:02Due to the risk of injury for those wanting to venture into the sinkhole, authorities
09:07have constructed a staircase to grant access to the lower level, which because it's so
09:11deep, contains 2,800 steps.
09:13To put this into perspective, if you wanted to climb to the top of the Empire State Building,
09:18you'd only need to walk up 1,575 steps.
09:23Number 8.
09:23C-44 Chevo, Russia.
09:26The industry that's responsible for digging the deepest and largest number of boreholes
09:31around the world is, of course, oil extraction, and some companies have ventured unbelievably
09:36deep in search of a valuable liquid.
09:39As more of the surface reserves are drained, it's been necessary to dig deeper, and while
09:44in 1949 the average oil well was 3,600 feet deep, the average oil well in 2008 was more
09:50than double that.
09:51Still, the deepest of all completely eclipses this, and it's not only the deepest oil well
09:56to have ever been dug, but also the longest borehole.
10:00Known as Z-44 Chevo, it's located on the Sakhalin Shelf, which is on the eastern coast of Sakhalin
10:05Island, and plunges a phenomenal 40,502 feet, or 12.3 kilometers, beneath the surface.
10:13This depth is more than 15 times the height of the tallest building ever constructed,
10:18the Burj Khalifa, and it's even deeper than the typical cruising altitude of a commercial
10:22airliner.
10:23The cost of digging so deep is, of course, astronomical, with this hole estimated to
10:28have needed at least $100 million.
10:31It will, however, work out well for the company behind it, because the reserves being tapped
10:35into are expected to produce around 2.3 billion barrels of oil.
10:40Number 7.
10:42Bertha Rogers Gas Well.
10:44In the late 1950s, companies across Oklahoma began digging into the ground in search of
10:49pressurized natural gas and oil deposits, and soon started discovering rich reserves.
10:56There was one tycoon, Robert Hefner III, who believed even greater sources could be found
11:00at extreme depths, and he risked everything by digging a well in 1967 that at the time
11:06broke all of the world's records.
11:09With controls on how much gas could be sold for, a well of this depth was in no way economical,
11:15but this didn't deter Hefner, who in 1972 began work on what would become the deepest
11:19hole ever dug in the United States.
11:22Known as the Bertha Rogers Gas Well, it was located in Washita County, and required the
11:27latest technology to even attempt it.
11:29By using a specially designed extra-wide pipe, they were able to progress at a rate of around
11:3460 feet, or 18 meters a day, and once they reached a depth of 14,000 feet, or 4,200 meters,
11:40they began cementing a string of 14-inch diameter casings that weighed more than 160 pounds
11:46per foot.
11:47By April of 1974, after failing to find any deposits of gas or oil, the well reached a
11:52depth of 31,441 feet, or 9,583 meters.
11:59The pressures they experienced down there were enormous, and the temperatures reached
12:03475 degrees Fahrenheit, or 246 degrees Celsius, before running into a deposit of liquid sulfur,
12:10which meant they could dig no further.
12:12Part of the hole was subsequently filled in, and to this day, you can still see the rig
12:16in place where it was drilled.
12:196.
12:20The Diavik Diamond Mine, Canada Located in the North Slave Region of Canada's
12:25Northern Territories, the Diavik Diamond Mine is one of the most valuable and important
12:30mines in North America.
12:32Surveys first determined that the site had a wealth of stones hidden beneath the surface
12:36in 1992, but it would take a further 11 years before the infrastructure was in place to
12:41begin digging.
12:42By then, power and boiler plants had to be built to support operations, as well as water
12:47and sewage processing facilities, buildings, and even its own runway that can be used by
12:51a Boeing 737.
12:53The reason for all of this was because it's in such a remote place, just 140 miles to
12:57the south of the Arctic Circle, that roads simply aren't reliable enough to keep it connected.
13:03Now producing around 7 million carats of diamonds per year and expected to be in operation for
13:08another two decades, the open-cast mine keeps growing.
13:12Having produced some of the continent's largest gems ever discovered, it's now the largest
13:16mine in Canada, and has been converted from an open-cast to an underground one so they
13:21can continue to dig even deeper.
13:24Number 5.
13:26The Berkeley Pit, Butte, Montana.
13:29First opened in 1955, the Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana is one of the largest man-made
13:35holes in the United States, and currently one of the most dangerous.
13:39The open-pit mine was originally operated by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, and
13:43by the time it was closed in 1982, it's thought a billion tons of material had been removed
13:48from the site.
13:500.75% of this was copper, which was the main valuable substance that it produced, but it
13:56also proved to be a source of silver, gold, and other various metals too, although in
14:00far lower quantities.
14:03Once digging finally ended, the pit measured a mass of 1 mile or 1.6 kilometers long, half
14:09a mile or 800 meters wide, and 1,700 feet or 540 meters deep, but in many ways this
14:16was just the beginning of the story.
14:18As there were no more plans to mine at the site, the water pumps in a nearby mine were
14:23turned off, and this resulted in the Berkeley Pit filling with water at a rate of around
14:2712 feet per year.
14:29Right now, the water is approximately 900 feet deep, and this has caused a real problem.
14:34Its presence has allowed the pyrite and sulfide minerals that are present in the pit walls
14:38to decay and form acid that's dissolved into the water, and means it has a pH level
14:43of 2.5, which is the same as lemon juice or gastric acid.
14:48This has caused further chemicals to seep into the water from the rock, and it's become
14:51a serious environmental hazard.
14:53In 1995, for example, a flock of geese landed on the water in the pit, and at least 342
15:00died within a matter of hours, while in 2016, several thousand snow geese suffered the same
15:06fate.
15:07Efforts are now underway to try to clean the pit and deter wildlife from trying to settle
15:11there, and in the meantime, it's also the site of a museum and a viewing platform, which
15:15allows visitors to walk out above the deadly water and get a bird's eye view of the huge
15:20pit.
15:214.
15:22The Chukicamata Copper Mine, Chile The Chukicamata Mine in Calama, Chile, holds
15:29the record for being the largest open pit copper mine in terms of the amount of material
15:34that's been removed.
15:35It's a region that's long been associated with the retrieval of the metal, with evidence
15:39suggesting it's been going on for at least 1500 years, but things really stepped up a
15:44gear in 1882 following the Chilean Civil War, and continued expanding for the next
15:49decade.
15:50The installation of flotation and smelting facilities, as well as huge refining factories
15:54meant that, by the 1970s, it was producing half a million tons of copper per year, and
15:59there's no sign of it slowing down any time soon.
16:02Currently, the pit is 2.7 miles or 4.3 kilometers long, 1.9 miles or 3 kilometers wide, and
16:10it's more than 3,000 feet or 900 meters deep.
16:13As well as producing copper, it's also one of the most important sources of molybdenum
16:17in the world, which is a metal that's used in various alloys, fertilizers, medical apparatus,
16:23and in power plants to reduce the amount of pollution they release.
16:26Despite being mined for such a long time, there's no sign that Chukicamata is anywhere
16:30near exhausted, and current projections suggest that there are many more decades of supplies
16:35left, and by that time, it could well be the deepest open-cast mine to have ever been dug.
16:413.
16:42Veryovkina Cave, Georgia Complex cave systems are often being discovered
16:48in places all around the world, but in the main, they relatively stay close to the surface,
16:53and are limited by the water table in terms of how far down they can go.
16:57Of course, it's virtually guaranteed that there are many thousands of cave networks
17:01that are yet to be discovered, and the one that currently holds the record as being the
17:04deepest that we know of is the Veryovkina Cave in Abkhazia, Georgia.
17:10Located in the Gagra mountain range, the entrance is at an altitude of 7,400 feet or 2,200 meters
17:15above sea level, and the furthest extent that's been explored of the cave reaches a depth
17:19of 7,200 feet or 2,200 meters.
17:23What's amazing about this cave though is that every time explorers go into it with the right
17:26equipment and supplies, they chart new tunnels and cavities, and it's quite possible that
17:31it reaches far further underground.
17:34Journeys to the depths require diving equipment and stop off at camps in a similar way to
17:39climbing a mountain, and can take two weeks to traverse in one direction.
17:43So far more than four miles or six kilometers of horizontal tunnels have been explored at
17:48depth, which include caverns that themselves are more than 1.5 miles long, and it's believed
17:54to represent just a fraction of what's down there.
17:58Number two, the Kaimei Core Site, Japan Trench.
18:02Japan is positioned on the Pacific Ring of Fire that's a region of heightened geological
18:06activity, and that's why the country often has to contend with earthquakes, tsunamis,
18:11and underwater volcanoes.
18:13Understandably huge sums have been spent on researching and exploring the motion of the
18:17tectonic plates in the area to try to further understand the dangers, and perhaps develop
18:22early warning techniques, and in May of 2021 this led a team to dig the deepest oceanic
18:27hole ever attempted.
18:29The drill site was the Japan Trench, which was the location of the epicenter of the magnitude
18:345.1 earthquake that triggered a companion tsunami in 2011, and the aim was to take a
18:40core sample from the continental crust to learn about historic quakes.
18:44The giant piston core was lowered from the research vessel Kaimei to the bottom of the
18:49Japan Trench, where it extracted a 120 foot or 37 meter core sample from the ocean floor.
18:55This meant that it reached a total depth of 26,322 feet or 8,023 meters, which is more
19:02than twice as deep as Mount Fuji is tall.
19:07Number 1.
19:08The Kola Superdeep Borehole, Russia In the 1960s and 70s, the US and Soviet Union
19:15were competing on a number of fronts, but while history remembers the space and nuclear
19:19arms races, there was another technological challenge that both countries attempted, the
19:24race to the center of the Earth.
19:26Of course, no one ever believed that they'd reach the planet's core, but the aim was
19:30to reach the layer beneath the crust if possible, and this required extremely complicated engineering
19:36to overcome the temperatures and pressures that they'd encounter.
19:40In the end, the Soviets won this battle, and to this day, the Kola Superdeep Borehole near
19:44the Russian border with Norway is the vertically deepest hole to have ever been dug.
19:50If you went to the site now, you'd struggle to even find it, because the top has long
19:53been welded shut, but this was the site of the great mystery and legend while operations
19:59were ongoing.
20:00Drilling began in 1970 with the custom-designed Euromash 4E rig, and when it ended in 1989,
20:07the 9-inch or 23-centimeter-wide hole had reached an astonishing depth of 7.619 miles
20:13or 12.3 kilometers.
20:16The intent was to try to dig deeper, but at these depths, things started acting very strangely.
20:21The temperature was almost double what scientific models had expected, which meant the equipment
20:26struggled to operate, and the combination of this and the pressure caused the rock to
20:30act like melted plastic, and this sticky substance was near impossible to drill through.
20:36Furthermore, strange sounds were recorded from the hole, even when the drill was inactive,
20:41and this led to the superstition that the well had managed to dig all of the way to
20:45the underworld.
20:48Still known locally as the Hell Hole, it'll probably be a long time until another project
20:53like this is ever attempted again.