NathanA Contradiction
So for the team, the initial 10,000 feet, the temperatures inside the borehole was more or less the predictions made by the team. It was similar to what the researchers were hoping to find. As they went deeper and deeper into the earth’s core, the team did not anticipate to find what they experienced. After going down furthermore, the level of heat shot up very quickly.
Hotter Than Expected
Since the team was able to work around and assess the possible problems that could rise up with the borehole until then, they were expecting to be able to get further down. But after 10,000 feet, there was a huge obstacle that needed to be fixed. The drilling team was getting very close to reaching their target but soon realized that the hole had heated up to about 180 °C (356 °F) – which was 80 °C (176 °F) hotter than expected.
Rock’s Reaction
The rise in temperature was not the only thing that the team had to deal with. There was something more. The scientists found out that the rock at these depths was far less dense than they had suspected. So their predictions went out the window and it was a lot different from how they planned on treating the situation. As a result, the reaction of the rocks because of the high temperature was quite the surprise.
22 Years Later
The issues were piling up and since the conditions were clearly not under their control, the team needed a better strategy. After further research was done, the team realized that their equipment was not going to last under these harsh conditions. So the the team at Kola had no other option but to again abandon this project. So it was already 1992 that time– 22 years since the drilling first took place. It had already been over a decade since the journey to the center of the earth began!
Kola Superdeep Borehole
Since the team was able to reach down a distance that no man has dared to go before, there was obviously a lot of information they had collected over all these years. Information about this earth that these researchers were able to get all thanks to this borehole that was dubbed the Kola Superdeep Borehole. There were some newly discovered tiny fossils of marine plants at 4 miles deep.
2 Billion Years
The relics that they found here were incredibly intact and taken into consideration how long they had spent caged below several miles of rock, there was something impressive about these fossils. What might that be you ask? Well, these relics are believed to be over two billion years old. Since the team did not have any prior knowledge or expectation, it was truly something that made them even more excited.