KOLA WELL: HISTORY, TRUTH OR URBAN LEGEND? - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2024

The Kola Well (also known as "Kola's super deep hole") is an excavation of more than 12,000 meters deep carried out between 1970 and 1989. It is one of the deepest artificial holes ever created, and is located on the Peninsula from Kola, in the Pechengsky District of the former Soviet Union.

With a diameter of 23 centimeters and a total depth of 12,262 meters, it was the deepest well ever dug until it was surpassed by the Al Shaheen oil well (12,289 meters) in Qatar in 2008. Later, in 2011, a new excavation became the deepest: the Odoptu OP-11 well, near the Russian island of Sakhalin, with 12,345 meters.

The entrance to Kola's well, sealed to this day. Source: Rakot13 The Kola Well was dug as part of a technological race between the two main superpowers that competed in the Cold War: the United States and the Soviet Union.

The objective of the project was to penetrate the earth's crust in order to study its characteristics. Although this super-deep hole is only one-third the length of the crust in that area, it provided a wealth of data for the researchers.

In reality, this well was not made in one go, but consists of several superimposed holes that are emerging from the previous one. The deepest, known as SG - 3, is only a few centimeters in diameter; but thanks to him we know many more details about the components of the crust of our planet.

Kola's super hole has also been the protagonist of several urban legends, the most famous of which is that the excavation was so deep that it accidentally opened the doors to Hell. According to this story, the team that created the well recorded strange sounds that came from the laments of the damned, who escaped through the hole.

Later, the urban legend was debunked, and the sounds were found to have been taken from the soundtrack of a movie, Blood Orgy. However, even today many are the people who believe that the well of Kola actually reached the very gates of Hell.

History and background

Superstructure of the Well, 2007. Andre Belozeroff In the 1960s, at the same time that the space race was being contested, the United States and Russia also engaged in another much less well-known competition: that of penetrating the earth's crust. This achievement would have served them to acquire much new knowledge about the age of the Earth, its composition, and the processes that occur within it.

Although at first glance it may seem like an absurd goal, researchers at the time believed that getting to penetrate the earth's crust would help them better understand phenomena such as volcanoes or earthquakes, as well as understanding more about the functioning of our planet in general.

The United States tried on several occasions to penetrate the earth's crust, although without success. The Soviet Union, aware of the failure of its main rival, set itself a more modest goal: to dig down to a depth of 15 kilometers, or to the point where it became impossible to continue going down due to technical difficulties. Thus began what would later become Kola's Well.

Well creation

Work on this super-deep hole began in 1971 on the Kola Peninsula. Over the next several years, the project team continued to descend lower and lower, breaking the world record at that time by reaching 9,583 meters in depth in 1979.

However, the Soviet engineers were not content with this result, and continued digging until reaching 12 kilometers in depth in 1983. At this time, due to technical difficulties, they decided to take a year off; But unfortunately, this time dragged on and restarting the project was more difficult than it seemed at first.

Thus, in 1984, an attempt was made to excavate a new hole from a depth of 5 kilometers. However, various problems prevented the depth from being reached 12 kilometers again until five years later. Once here, the excessive temperature made the project had to be abandoned.

Finally, the Kola Well was completely abandoned in 1992. Today, only old, rusted and discarded equipment can be found at its creation site; and a cover that prevents the passage to the beginning of the hole.

Well situation in 2012. Bigest

What was found in Kola's well?

Although Soviet scientists never achieved their goal, the truth is that the creation of this hole (the deepest on the planet at the time) served to make a large number of important discoveries, related to the nature of the Earth and the functioning of the cortex.

For example, prior to the excavation it was believed that a large granite and basalt quarry existed about 7 kilometers deep; but this was found to be untrue. In fact, the researchers found that in this region there were only porous and fragmented rocks, with the holes filled with water, something that greatly surprised the experts of the time.

In addition to this, evidence of the existence of fossil plankton was also found in regions with a depth of 6 kilometers; and large amounts of hydrogen were found.

How deep is the well really?

The creation of the Kola well was not done in a linear fashion, but occurred in phases. At the end of the stage known as SG - 3, in 1989, the deepest point had reached 12,262 meters. This record was held until 2008, when a Qatari oil well reached 12,289 meters.

However, the depth is not the same in all areas of the hole. In the outermost part, the width is much greater than that which can be found in the deepest point. This is due to the techniques used to carry out this excavation, which was created by levels using increasingly smaller machines.

Thus, the deepest point of the Kola well is only 23 centimeters in diameter, because traditional drills were not capable of operating at such a depth. In this way, a special team had to be created to overcome some of the technical problems experienced by the Soviets.

On the other hand, although today there are two other holes that have reached deeper than the Kola well, the truth is that if we take into account the initial height at which construction began, this is still the largest excavation carried out in the world. This is because the other two started at sea level, so in total terms they are not that high.

The legend of the «well to Hell»

But not all people who are interested in the Kola well do so because of its great scientific and technical merit. During the last decades, the urban legend has spread that this excavation reached such a deep point that it opened the gates of Hell, causing the death of several workers and unleashing great evil on the world.

The urban legend began to spread around 1997. According to this story, a group of engineers, led by a certain «Mr. Azakov ”, began to excavate at an unknown point in Siberia and managed to reach a depth of 14.4 kilometers before finding a kind of underground cave.

Surprised by their strange discovery, the researchers decided to lower a microphone specially designed to withstand very high temperatures. Although the well was supposedly at a temperature of around 1,000ºC, the team managed to record screams and laments, which according to legend would come from the condemned and tortured. They had found Hell.

Convinced that they had found something very dangerous, many of the scientists left their jobs immediately. However, those who stayed had an even bigger surprise that very night. Supposedly, a burst of light and gas came out of the well hours later; and those present could see a figure with bat wings escape from it.

The legend ends by saying that the appearance of the demon caused such a commotion that everyone present lost their minds, and some of them died. To cover up the incident, the KGB dispatched a medical team that administered special drugs to the scientists to erase their short-term memory. Thus, an attempt would have been made to eliminate all memory of what happened, and the well would be permanently closed until today.

Truth or legend?

Although the story from the "well to Hell" is very difficult to believe, many people around the world take it as true. In some Christian circles, for example, this story has sometimes been used as supposed proof of the physical existence of Hell. However, not only does the legend lack any evidence, but many of the details of it are wrong.

On the one hand, the Kola well is not in Siberia, but in the Russian province of the same name. In addition, its depth is much less than the one that tells the story; and upon reaching its peak, the site remained open and operational for several years, while all kinds of scientific and geological investigations were carried out.

Thus, as much as we like urban legends, the truth is that the Kola well was nothing more than the result of an immense scientific and technical effort on the part of the Soviet Union. Yet even today the achievement is still impressive, attracting the attention of thousands of people around the world.

References

1. "The Real Journey to The Center of The Earth: The Kola Superdeep Borehole" in: Interesting Engineering. Retrieved on: September 28, 2019 from Interesting Engineering: interestingengineering.com.
2. "Kola Superdeep Borehole" in: Atlas Obscura. Retrieved on: September 28, 2019 from Atlas Obscura: atlasobscura.com.
3. "Kola Superdeep Borehole" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: September 28, 2019 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.
4. "The deepest hole we have ever dug" in: BBC. Retrieved on: September 28, 2019 from BBC: bbc.com.
5. "Well to Hell Hoax" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: September 28, 2019 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.