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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and Chuck's

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Speaker 2: here two and Jerry's here too. Because this one's so exciting.

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Speaker 2: Jerry said, I wouldn't miss this one for the world,

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Speaker 2: and this is stuff.

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Speaker 1: You should know unless I had some minor appointment or

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Speaker 1: meeting that I could easily move.

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Speaker 2: It's so great that Jerry just doesn't talk on this

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Speaker 2: because we can see whatever we want and we can't

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Speaker 2: hear what she's saying in response.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be fun as if we were doing

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Speaker 1: our fun poking at Jerry sometimes and she just cut

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Speaker 1: in and said, cope yourself, guys.

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Speaker 2: Right, I mean, I'm sure that's what she's thinking.

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Speaker 1: Maybe we can beat that out. That'd be fun.

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Speaker 2: We'll see. But yes, she's excited about this one. And

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Speaker 2: she even said it's not going to be boring, or

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Speaker 2: is it? And we said, Jerry, pipe down boring.

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Speaker 1: Wasn't that a Simpson s thing?

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Speaker 2: Boring? I don't know. It sounds like Reverend Lovejoy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like Reverend love Joy did that in

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Speaker 1: a sermon one time that led them into like a

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Speaker 1: flashback or something very distant memory.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like you're talking about the Mister Sparkle episode

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Speaker 2: where Marge becomes the listen lady at church and Reverend

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Speaker 2: Lovejoy's completely lost like his I guess pastoral sense. And

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Speaker 2: the flashback you're talking about is when he traces it

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Speaker 2: back to the first time he met ned Flanders who

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Speaker 2: came to him for advice because he'd just done the

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Speaker 2: bump and his rear end touched the rear end of

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Speaker 2: another young man and he was up in arms about it.

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Speaker 1: And maybe he was saying boring because it was a

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Speaker 1: ned Flanders flashback. It's possible somebody will know this one.

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Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it was Lovejoy though.

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Speaker 2: Okay, well it didn't, Yeah, it didn't. We should have

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Speaker 2: said that in unison.

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Speaker 1: Have been great.

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Speaker 2: We're talking today not about the Simpsons, although we just

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Speaker 2: have and that's great. We're talking today about a different

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Speaker 2: kind of Cold War race between the USSR and the

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Speaker 2: United States. Got a lot less press, way less press.

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Speaker 2: It got a lot less money and funding and you know,

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Speaker 2: attension and technology and engineers and brains thrown at it.

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Speaker 2: But I also wonder, Chuck, if we downplay it because

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Speaker 2: the USSR beat US so soundly at this particular race.

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Speaker 1: Maybe, yeah, that's possible, because you know, of course, we're

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Speaker 1: not talking about going to outer space. We're talking about

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Speaker 1: boring deep into the Earth and digging a deep hole.

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Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about that now in the

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Speaker 1: form of the Cola Borhole KOLA. And this started in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties.

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Speaker 2: Yes, well, yes, I think the idea started in the sixties,

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Speaker 2: but they started drilling in the seventh nineteen. But let's

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Speaker 2: not get ahead of ourselves, because the Soviets were actually

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Speaker 2: following the American lead. America made the first shot over

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Speaker 2: the Soviets bow by drilling into the undearth the vow first. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I think him. They undermined the Soviet morale by doing this.

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Speaker 1: That's right. In nineteen fifty eight, we launched something called

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Speaker 1: Project Mohole, and this is like, hey, let's dig down

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Speaker 1: to the mantle. Let's get a sample off of Guadalupe Island,

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Speaker 1: Like let's go through the ocean floor, because the ocean's

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Speaker 1: already deep, so let's just go ahead and start down there.

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Speaker 1: And the name Project Mohole is a bit of a

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Speaker 1: science sciencey nerdy joke that plays on the Moho discontinuity

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Speaker 1: or discontinuity. How would you say?

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Speaker 2: The second one?

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Speaker 1: Second one, and that is the the Moho discontinuity. Is

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Speaker 1: the region worthy crust and the mantle meet up and

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Speaker 1: say hello, right.

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Speaker 2: And they were, I mean this is theoretical. We should say.

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Speaker 2: It's named after a guy named a I think it's

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Speaker 2: Mohorovicic of Croatia, who back in nineteen oh nine, nineteen

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Speaker 2: oh nine, mind you, was studying seismic waves from earthquakes

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Speaker 2: so closely that he realized that at some point in

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Speaker 2: the Earth's crust they actually like speed up, they hit

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Speaker 2: some literal inflection point, and he was like, there's some

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Speaker 2: sort of boundary there, maybe even a discontinuity, as chuckle

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Speaker 2: later say, and he well, it became I don't think

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Speaker 2: he named it after himself, but it became called the

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Speaker 2: Moho discontinuity. Like you said, it was hypothetical as theoretical,

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Speaker 2: but one reason they named it that is because ultimately

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Speaker 2: the goal was to drill right through the crust into

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Speaker 2: the mantle. That's the money lithosphere.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And you know what, nothing turns me

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Speaker 1: on more than scientifically speaking, then early science where they

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Speaker 1: someone got it right, you know what I mean? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Like it's fun to talk about blood letting and stuff

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Speaker 1: like that. But I love it when somebody, like way

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Speaker 1: before they know about this stuff, has an idea and

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Speaker 1: it kind of bears out to be correct. I just

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Speaker 1: love that stuff. So hats off to you Croatian scientist

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Speaker 1: whose name I'm not going to.

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Speaker 2: Try if blood lighting is wrong, I don't want to

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Speaker 2: be right, Chuck.

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Speaker 1: Very nice.

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Speaker 2: I also want to give a shout out to the

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Speaker 2: group of scientists, the informal drinking group called the American

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Speaker 2: Miscellaneous Society or AMSOCK.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they seem fun, huh.

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Speaker 2: They came up with this idea in the fifties, and

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Speaker 2: it was one of many ideas that they had, most

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Speaker 2: of which were just totally ridiculous in outlandish, like towing

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Speaker 2: icebergs to California to use for irrigation. This one actually

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Speaker 2: had legs, and it got funding from the National Science Association,

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Speaker 2: and they got to drilling, like you said in Guadaloupe,

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Speaker 2: and they it actually got funding from the National Academy

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Speaker 2: of Sciences and they started drilling, and well, I guess

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Speaker 2: what the Gulf of the Pacific, Oh God is Mexico

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Speaker 2: and island.

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Speaker 1: Your desire for specificity gets you in so much trouble.

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Speaker 2: Okay, well, at any rate, just they started drilling. Yeah, wow,

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Speaker 2: that felt really good. I've never tried that before. Huh.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, vagary is my secret weapon.

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Speaker 2: Okay, thanks for letting me in on it. I think

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Speaker 2: I've just turned over a new leaf.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they got that funding. They made it down about

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Speaker 1: just over six hundred feet, which is not too bad. This,

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Speaker 1: to me is one of the more fun facts of

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Speaker 1: the whole episode. Like this, John Steinbeck, the author went

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Speaker 1: along to document it. Mm hmm, Like who should we get?

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Steinbeck's pretty good.

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Speaker 2: That's where he got the idea for the end of

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Speaker 2: Mice and Men. There was a one of the engineers

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Speaker 2: accidentally dropped a sample, a very precious sample. Yeah, and

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Speaker 2: rather than let the rest of the crew kill the

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Speaker 2: guy in a terrible fashion, he stuck up behind him

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Speaker 2: and took his life.

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Speaker 1: That's good. Wait with Steinbeck the Pearl.

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Speaker 2: Is that what his nickname was, the Pearl?

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Speaker 1: Or did he write the Pearl? Because that was about

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Speaker 1: pearl diving, So I'm pretty sure that was Steinbeck. So

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Speaker 1: he may obviously had some sort of interest in going

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Speaker 1: under the sea.

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Speaker 2: He did. Actually, it's funny you say that because he

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Speaker 2: was a I think a trained marine biologist, or he

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Speaker 2: was planning on going into marine biology and never really

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Speaker 2: lost his love of it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty cool, so awesome project. They pulled the plug

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty six, or I guess rather they stuck

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Speaker 1: in the plug in nineteen sixty six when the US

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Speaker 1: House representative said no more, no more drilling. And then

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Speaker 1: four years later the Soviets set off to do a

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Speaker 1: deep drilling attempt when they drilled into the earth in Mirmansk, Russia,

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Speaker 1: just near the Norwegian border, near the Barren See. And

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Speaker 1: this is it. This is the Cola Super Deep Borehole

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Speaker 1: aka the deepest hole ever dug by human beings.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, still to this day. Yeah. And it's named Cola

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Speaker 2: because it's on the Cola Peninsula. Kola, did you spell it?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: I love it. It's worth spelling again and another time, Kola.

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Speaker 1: It's like a Cola nut exactly.

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Speaker 2: The thing is, Chuck is for as stupendous an achievement

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Speaker 2: as this is. And if you're a geologist, if you're

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Speaker 2: an earth scientist basically of any sort, this is a

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Speaker 2: stupendous achievement that they carried out in Soviet Russia in

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Speaker 2: the seventies and eighties. It's just been completely like left

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Speaker 2: to rod. Did you see those pictures of it now?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you walk right past the thing and

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Speaker 1: not even though it's there.

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Speaker 2: Right, And the the reason why you could walk right

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Speaker 2: past is because it's the whole The hole I was

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Speaker 2: going to say, the whole hole, which makes sense, is

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Speaker 2: only like nine inches in diameter. I think that's twenty

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Speaker 2: three centimeters, yeah, twenty three centimeters right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, It's like I went caving that time, and instead

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Speaker 1: of walking into a big rocky cave, I like crawled

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Speaker 1: into a small hole in the ground. I know, but

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Speaker 1: that's the same deal. Like nine inches is very small.

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Speaker 1: It has got a plate secured over it with some

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Speaker 1: old rusty bolts, and I think you found out they

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Speaker 1: even etched on top of what it was, but they

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Speaker 1: got the number wrong, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. As we'll see, the Coola super deep borehole got

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Speaker 2: all the way down to twelve thou two hundred and

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Speaker 2: sixty two meters into the Earth's crust, and we'll tell

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Speaker 2: you about just how deep that it will put in

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Speaker 2: perspective in a second. But when they put the when

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Speaker 2: they wrote down how deep it was, they transposed the

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Speaker 2: last two numbers, so they shorted it by thirty four

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Speaker 2: thirty eight meters maybe something around that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you might be disappointed to know if you

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Speaker 1: like took some took a ranch out there, and you're like,

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Speaker 1: I got to drop a rock in that thing just

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Speaker 1: to see if I can hear anything, and took that

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Speaker 1: plate off. Let's say you were able to, you wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be able to drop anything in it, just because of

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Speaker 1: the Earth's movement over time. It is no longer like,

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Speaker 1: at least at that point, like a continuous hole. It's

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Speaker 1: kind of shifted and fulled and kind of caved in

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Speaker 1: in places, and it is full of gunk.

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Speaker 2: It is. And legend has it that if you had

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Speaker 2: recorded the movements of the Earth over that time span

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Speaker 2: and played it back at fast speed, you would hear

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Speaker 2: the Earth going as it subsided the deepest hole in

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Speaker 2: the planet.

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Speaker 1: The status of Trombones exactly, all right, So you promised

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Speaker 1: talk about how deep this thing was, and in true

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Speaker 1: stuff you should know fashion. We're gonna have several examples,

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Speaker 1: none of which Big Max surprisingly no.

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Speaker 2: But there is a Domino's pizza reference in there.

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Speaker 1: I was hoping not to not mention that.

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Speaker 2: No, it's that specificity thing I have running through. I'm

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Speaker 2: just gonna say it. The diameter the hole is about

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Speaker 2: as big around as a small pizza from Dominoes there.

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Speaker 1: That's right. I think people are suspicious of all of

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Speaker 1: our brand mentioned, so I was trying to avoid those.

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Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, come on people, Hey, you know that's

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Speaker 1: the thing. So this thing is deep, deep, deep. It

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Speaker 1: is about seven point six miles deep, about twelve thousand,

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Speaker 1: two hundred and sixty two meters or two hundred and

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Speaker 1: thirty feet deep. Like we said, the deepest hole ever.

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Speaker 1: It is lower than it's deeper than the lowest point

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Speaker 1: of the Mariana Trench. That's a pretty fun one. Sure

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Speaker 1: got a height perspective.

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Speaker 2: Height wise, it's it's deeper than the highest point on

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Speaker 2: Earth is tall, Mount Everest. In fact, it's so much

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Speaker 2: deeper than Mountain eversus is tall you could put Mount

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Speaker 2: Fuji on top of Mount ever and the Cola Borhole

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Speaker 2: would still be deeper than those two sacked on top

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Speaker 2: of one another.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's it. That's a deep thing. Everybody.

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Speaker 2: Well, wait a minute, Wait a minute, there's one more

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Speaker 2: that knocks my socks off. Can I say it?

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Speaker 1: It's probably the one I scribbled through. So yes, let's

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Speaker 1: hear it.

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Speaker 2: It is deeper than the height of the average cruising

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Speaker 2: altitude of a commercial airliner, specifically Delta Airlines.

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Speaker 1: Yep, I scratched right through that thing. I was like,

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Speaker 1: we don't need that many examples. I love to take

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Speaker 1: that one, all right. So this went down into the

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Speaker 1: outermost layer of the Earth, which is continental crust, that

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Speaker 1: is like what we're standing on right now. They wanted

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Speaker 1: to reach the mantle with their technology. They thought they

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Speaker 1: could get down to nine point three miles, but only

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Speaker 1: made it seven point six.

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Speaker 2: That's right, yes, and nine point three mile sounds like

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Speaker 2: a really weird goal. But it turns out that they

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Speaker 2: were going for fifteen kilometers.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but they thought that was I guess out of

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Speaker 1: reach if they figured nine point three was reasonable.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, and we will. There was an article I

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Speaker 2: found it was It's called Going Deep Excavation, Collaboration and

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Speaker 2: Imagination at the Cola Super Deep Borehole. It was written

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Speaker 2: by Charlotte Wriggley and published an Environment and Planning d

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Speaker 2: the Journal in twenty twenty three, and Charlotte Wrigglely points

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Speaker 2: out that the Cola Super Deep Borehole raised more questions

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Speaker 2: than answered them because one of the things they thought

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Speaker 2: is that this stuff was going to confirm all of

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Speaker 2: the predictions that Earth scientists had made over time, and

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Speaker 2: the fact that they thought they were going to get

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Speaker 2: down fifteen kilometers and the reasons that they didn't get

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Speaker 2: down that far. Basically, it's like a great example of

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Speaker 2: what the Cola Super Deep Borehole did, which was take

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Speaker 2: science and churn it up like a huge swath of

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Speaker 2: the Earth during an earthquake.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. Uh, that's maybe a good time for a break.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do that, all right.

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Speaker 1: We'll be right back everybody with more on this deep

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Speaker 1: deep hole.

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Speaker 2: So, Chuck, we should probably just do a quick primer

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Speaker 2: of eighth grader science, maybe of the layers of the Earth,

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Speaker 2: if you'll bear with me.

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Speaker 1: Sure.

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Speaker 2: So you've got the outermost layer, the crust made up

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Speaker 2: of the continental crust, which is what we stand on,

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Speaker 2: and the oceanic crust, which is at the bottom of

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Speaker 2: the sea. Beneath that, you got the mantle and by

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Speaker 2: the way, the crust averages about twenty five miles or

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Speaker 2: forty kilometers thick. After that you got the mantle way thicker,

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Speaker 2: eighteen hundred miles thick. Then you hit the outer core.

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Speaker 1: You hit the.

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Speaker 2: Inner core, which has a diameter of about twelve hundred

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Speaker 2: and thirty miles or nineteen hundred and eighty kilometers, which

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Speaker 2: happens to be about the distance from Topeka, Kansas to

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Speaker 2: Klondike Buff's Bluff's Utah.

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Speaker 1: Okay, you said that's the radius.

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Speaker 2: That is No, that's the diameter, the full diameter of

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Speaker 2: the inner core. And then possibly there's also a super

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Speaker 2: liquid inner inner core that represents the centermost point of Earth.

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Speaker 1: That's right, and that's where Ronnie James Dio resides. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think.

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Speaker 2: So I've got to give an obligatory shout out to

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Speaker 2: the greatest tattoo ever. Oh okay, remember that one of

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Speaker 2: Dio on somebody's forearm.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 2: So for those of you who don't know what I'm

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Speaker 2: talking about, there's a tattoo out there of Ronnie Dio

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Speaker 2: making like the devil horns, but the perspective is done

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Speaker 2: in a way that it looks like Dio's arm turns

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Speaker 2: into the person with the tattoos, arm and fingers, so

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Speaker 2: they make the devil horns and it looks like Ronnie

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Speaker 2: Dio is. The perspective is just that amazing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. The only problem is it involves your armpit, right,

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Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, it's really kind of the worst part

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Speaker 1: of the body to me. The arm pit not a

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Speaker 1: fan to me.

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Speaker 2: There's other parts that are grosser.

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Speaker 1: Like the butthole.

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Speaker 2: Sure, unless it's been recently.

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Speaker 1: Bleached between the dose. Oh my god, coming from the

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Speaker 1: guy who just said butthole, now I'm offended.

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Speaker 2: I got that from Bruno. Remember the Sasha Baron Cohen movie. Bruno, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: you got what aintal bleaching?

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Speaker 1: Oh? Is that first time you heard of that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I hadn't heard of it before.

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Speaker 1: Okay, man, this is great episode. I mean we are

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Speaker 1: talking about super deepoles. So what we're trying to say is,

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Speaker 1: while it is impressive to go down seven point six miles,

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Speaker 1: that is like about a third of the Earth's crust alone.

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Speaker 1: So they were trying to get to the mantle and

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Speaker 1: that's just I mean, that doesn't seem like it's possible

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Speaker 1: that that could ever happen. R And it took years

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Speaker 1: and years to do. They started this project on May

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Speaker 1: twenty fourth, nineteen seventy and by nineteen seventy nine that

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Speaker 1: had broken all digging records. By nineteen eighty nine they

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Speaker 1: had reached that depth of forty two hundred and thirty feet,

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Speaker 1: which was kind of it. The project was opened for

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Speaker 1: a little while longer after that, but for reasons we

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Speaker 1: will go over soon you'll learn why. That was basically

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Speaker 1: about as deep as they could go. In nineteen eighty nine,

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Speaker 1: they were like, we can't get Kney deeper.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. The one that it's like the reverse perspective that

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Speaker 2: gets me is that they dug point two percent of

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Speaker 2: the entire distance to the center point of the Earth. So,

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Speaker 2: like you said, it's impressive in some terms. In other terms,

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Speaker 2: it's just kind of a stupid hole, you know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know there's if you're wondering, like why

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Speaker 1: would they even do this? What's down there? There's a

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Speaker 1: lot of reasons. There are a lot of deep holes

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Speaker 1: all over the world. Most of those are for like,

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Speaker 1: you know, mineral extraction or fossil fuel extraction or metals,

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Speaker 1: you know, ors things like that. There's the one hundred

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Speaker 1: year old Bingham Canyon Copper Mine and Salt Lake City. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: pretty great. Three quarters of a mile deep, but two

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Speaker 1: and a half miles across, So that is a snow

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Speaker 1: small pizza.

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Speaker 2: Now there's another one called the Big Hole. It's in

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Speaker 2: South Africa, belongs to the Kimberly Diamond Mine. It's one

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Speaker 2: of the largest holes in the world, with the caveat

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Speaker 2: of holes that were dug by human hands in no machinery,

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Speaker 2: which sounds pretty impressive unless you realize that you can

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Speaker 2: threaten to cut off those people's hands if they don't

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Speaker 2: use them to dig, then you can get it done.

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Speaker 2: And I'm quite sure that's what happened.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I did not even look into that, and I

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Speaker 1: just had great certainty that that was a completely exploitive experience.

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Speaker 2: Well, even if it's not true, we should be forgiven

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Speaker 2: because we're talking about South Africa diamond mines and giant

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Speaker 2: holes dug by hand. You can it's a pretty pretty

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Speaker 2: reasonable surmization.

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Speaker 1: Yeah sermization, I don't know. I love it all right.

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Speaker 1: So that's one reason why you can dig down is

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Speaker 1: you know, for minerals and fossil heels and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: But you can also just learn a lot about science,

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Speaker 1: and we did learn a lot about science through or

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Speaker 1: you know, the Soviets did, and we did through our

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Speaker 1: deep poles. But you know, like you mentioned earthquakes, obviously geohazards,

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Speaker 1: they ended up learning a lot about that stuff, and

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Speaker 1: we'll detail that a little bit. Geothermal heat and energy

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Speaker 1: is another big one. Oh, I don't know, maybe about

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Speaker 1: climate change and what's happened in the past that you

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Speaker 1: could find from digging deep, or maybe just like, hey,

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Speaker 1: we know a lot more about outer space than we

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Speaker 1: do about what's under our feet, so let's get down

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Speaker 1: there and see what we can learn.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the place that they were digging so like we

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Speaker 2: usually dig ice cores to kind of get an idea

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Speaker 2: of climate change. Yeah, that's actually in the fairly recent past.

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Speaker 2: We're talking on the order of tens of hundreds of

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Speaker 2: thousands of years.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: The crust that they were digging into is pre Cambrian,

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Speaker 2: meaning that it came together and was formed from anywhere

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Speaker 2: between the origin of Earth to five hundred and thirty

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Speaker 2: eight million years ago, So it is super old. There's

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Speaker 2: a lot of secrets that could be unlocked just by

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Speaker 2: boring into it and looking at what comes up. Right,

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Speaker 2: So that's that's a good reason. Also, fossil fuels you

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Speaker 2: really can't look past. This is the seventies and eighties,

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Speaker 2: so they're One of the stated goals of the KSB

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Speaker 2: was to basically figure out new techniques for drilling super

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Speaker 2: deep oil wells, essentially because they said that it would

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Speaker 2: be a great benefit to mankind if we can learn

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Speaker 2: how to dig out fossil fuels that are deeper that

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Speaker 2: we can't currently reach.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, you know, I mentioned promise of earthquake talk.

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Speaker 1: They did just come up a lot lately again, but

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Speaker 1: they did learn about that stuff like if you go

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Speaker 1: really deep into the spot lines, you can detect, you know,

390
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Speaker 1: these tiny minute quakes that you don't even feel up

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Speaker 1: topside where we are. And you know, all of that

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Speaker 1: is usually about just learning how to get more accurate

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Speaker 1: predictions in the future. You know, they do like computer

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Speaker 1: simulations and stuff, but they need data input to do

395
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Speaker 1: those simulations right, and these holes give you great data

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Speaker 1: for that kind of thing.

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Speaker 2: They also have figured out how to use all of

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Speaker 2: that seismographic data to basically turn the resonance or the

399
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Speaker 2: way they resonate through Earth into images of inner Earth.

400
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Speaker 2: Itself fun and that really kind of I mean, you

401
00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:45,720
Speaker 2: can get if you're looking at mega colossal geology. There's

402
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Speaker 2: no reason I would say to dig anymore. Like if

403
00:21:48,520 --> 00:21:50,320
Speaker 2: we can do that kind of thing, I mean dig

404
00:21:50,359 --> 00:21:54,040
Speaker 2: to put you know, deeper and deeper seismographs, but not

405
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Speaker 2: to necessarily find out what inner Earth is like, because

406
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Speaker 2: we can image it like that in the same way

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Speaker 2: that if you have a watch one of those cool

408
00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:04,719
Speaker 2: archaeological shows on BBC, sometimes they'll have what looks like

409
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Speaker 2: a like a tamper, like a walk behind tamper, but

410
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Speaker 2: it has a shotgun shell that you put into it

411
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Speaker 2: and you show a shotgun shell. Yeah, it's like a

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Speaker 2: seismographic imager and it shows you what's you know, buried

413
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Speaker 2: beneath the ground in that field or whatever. This is

414
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Speaker 2: the same thing, except they're taking the data not from

415
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Speaker 2: the resonance from a shotgun shell, but from the resonance

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Speaker 2: of earthquakes in Earth and turning those into images.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. That's super cool. Yeah, and you know we also

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Speaker 1: want to just like pull stuff out of there and

419
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Speaker 1: see what it looks like, what's going on down there,

420
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Speaker 1: like what our deep deep crust looks like. When you

421
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Speaker 1: know they bring stuff out, it's generally pretty crumbly by

422
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:49,440
Speaker 1: that point and kind of falls apart because of atmospheric

423
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Speaker 1: pressure changes and stuff like that. So you know, getting

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Speaker 1: those pictures of what things look like in their sort

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Speaker 1: of undisturbed state is beneficial, right.

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Speaker 2: And if you're like all these seems kind of flimsy,

427
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:06,160
Speaker 2: holes are they're super deep. Holes are the greatest example

428
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Speaker 2: of humans curiosity just for the sake of knowing something new. Yeah,

429
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Speaker 2: then you'll find just about anywhere.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, don't stifle that.

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Speaker 2: People no get it the program.

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Speaker 1: So another question you might have is why did it

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Speaker 1: take so long? And why is it so hard to do?

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Speaker 1: And why aren't we able to just go deeper and

435
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Speaker 1: deeper and deeper? Like why they have to stop? Kind

436
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Speaker 1: of all those big questions, and it's you know, they

437
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:34,520
Speaker 1: didn't realize until they got started. I don't think they

438
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:36,640
Speaker 1: thought it was gonna be a cakewalk, but they didn't

439
00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:40,160
Speaker 1: realize until they really started digging down there that it's

440
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:41,919
Speaker 1: not the easiest thing in the world to do and

441
00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:44,920
Speaker 1: there's a lot of complications that can arise. They didn't

442
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:48,160
Speaker 1: at first. You found this YouTube site called half as

443
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:51,240
Speaker 1: Interesting that we're talking about the drill bits, like they

444
00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:53,159
Speaker 1: did a great job through granted they have you know,

445
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:55,719
Speaker 1: it's like a boring drill bit. It's like a you know,

446
00:23:55,800 --> 00:23:59,480
Speaker 1: like a windy cone with like teeth on the outside

447
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:02,400
Speaker 1: of it, you know, to bore a hole. This kind

448
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:05,199
Speaker 1: of stuff They used to like board subway tunnels and

449
00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:07,840
Speaker 1: you know, all kinds of tunnels through mountain, but in

450
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:10,000
Speaker 1: this case they were going straight down. Those can only

451
00:24:10,080 --> 00:24:13,159
Speaker 1: work for about four hours until you need to replace

452
00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:15,240
Speaker 1: that bit, like the bit wears off and that's only

453
00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:18,480
Speaker 1: about thirty feet or so, depending on where you're digging

454
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: and how hard that rock is, and then you can't

455
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:23,040
Speaker 1: just pop it off like a drill you get from

456
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:26,680
Speaker 1: the hardware store and pop on another one. Those bits

457
00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:30,200
Speaker 1: took you know, sometimes eight hours or more to change over.

458
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 1: Then you start drilling, drilling again. And then once they

459
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:36,160
Speaker 1: hit about four point three miles, it was pretty smooth

460
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:38,160
Speaker 1: sailing up into that point. Then it got much more

461
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:41,480
Speaker 1: dense and then things got just really really tough at

462
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:41,879
Speaker 1: that point.

463
00:24:42,680 --> 00:24:47,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, the density of the rock really presented like a

464
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:49,399
Speaker 2: big problem for them. Like up to that point, like

465
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:52,160
Speaker 2: you said, it was pretty easy. It was just monotonous.

466
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 2: Now it was really hard. They were on a front

467
00:24:56,080 --> 00:25:00,960
Speaker 2: tier of vertical underground hole digging, and the reason why

468
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:03,399
Speaker 2: the density of the rock proved to be problematic is

469
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:09,360
Speaker 2: the denser rock would just push the the drill bit

470
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 2: over into less dense rock. So it made it really

471
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:16,120
Speaker 2: hard to keep going straight down because the drill bit

472
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:18,639
Speaker 2: it needs to get purchased, but it's way easier to

473
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 2: get purchase in less dense rock than the dense rockets

474
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:26,879
Speaker 2: trying to go directly vertically through that created also lesser

475
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 2: known thing about the Cola Super deep borehole, and that

476
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:32,760
Speaker 2: is it is not a single straight vertical shaft.

477
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's nice to think of it that way, Like

478
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:38,439
Speaker 1: they just drilled straight down, but when they encounter that

479
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:40,640
Speaker 1: really really tough rock, the drill bit will like get

480
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:43,560
Speaker 1: kicked to the side. Yeah, starts going a different way.

481
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:47,800
Speaker 1: You know, they tried to you know, that presents problems

482
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 1: in and of itself, Like they try to use steal

483
00:25:49,359 --> 00:25:52,960
Speaker 1: pipes to reinforce the sides as they went a lot

484
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:56,920
Speaker 1: Charlie Bunsen in the Great Escape. But the deeper they went,

485
00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:00,639
Speaker 1: those pipes, you know, we're having trouble with standing the pressure,

486
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 1: so they might break or they might kick out of line,

487
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 1: and then they have to fill that hole up to

488
00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:09,400
Speaker 1: where they were, go back above it and then drill

489
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 1: down around it. And so the uh, you know, it

490
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:15,480
Speaker 1: looks more like a Christmas tree when you're going down

491
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: and you know, if they had too much, like a

492
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:22,959
Speaker 1: drill bit broke off completely, or maybe the sides that

493
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:26,280
Speaker 1: piping caved in too much and they couldn't get around it,

494
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:28,639
Speaker 1: they would have to go in like a fishing expedition

495
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 1: to try and get that stuff out, and that would

496
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:33,040
Speaker 1: that would knock them offline for you know, days at

497
00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:33,440
Speaker 1: a time.

498
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 2: Yeah. The article by Charlotte Wrigley says that one of

499
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:42,439
Speaker 2: their fishing trips took five years. Five years, and so

500
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:45,440
Speaker 2: to get around the rock and also to keep from

501
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:48,920
Speaker 2: just standing around for five years, they would start another hole.

502
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 1: Yeah.

503
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:52,240
Speaker 2: But the reason why everybody calls it the super deep

504
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:56,840
Speaker 2: bore hole, not bore holes, is because there was there

505
00:26:56,960 --> 00:26:59,760
Speaker 2: is one central shaft and then the other holes branch

506
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:00,399
Speaker 2: off of that.

507
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly right.

508
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 2: So they the depth that they got to twelve two

509
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty two meters, that's the depth. The actual

510
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,920
Speaker 2: length that they drilled all over the place is I'm

511
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 2: not I didn't see the actual length, but it seems

512
00:27:16,640 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 2: like it's a lot more than.

513
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 1: That, Yeah, for sure.

514
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:23,879
Speaker 2: So they they still they kind of figured out a

515
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 2: workaround for the rock density problem, and then I think

516
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:32,919
Speaker 2: at about twelve ten thousand feet less than or just

517
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:37,239
Speaker 2: over three thousand meters, they encountered an issue that they

518
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 2: couldn't They found they eventually couldn't overcome.

519
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:44,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was temperature. They kind of had guestimated

520
00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:47,160
Speaker 1: correctly up into that point what the temperature was about

521
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:48,679
Speaker 1: going to you know what it was. They thought it

522
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 1: was going to be at least and they were like this,

523
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 1: that'll be fine. But once they reached that point, there

524
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 1: was a big jump. It went from what was the

525
00:27:57,080 --> 00:28:01,399
Speaker 1: initial number, like two fourteen or so degrees all the

526
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 1: way up to three hundred and fifty six degrees fahrenheit

527
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 1: or one hundred and eighty degrees celsius. And that was

528
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: about twelve clicks down about seven and a half miles.

529
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:13,480
Speaker 1: And as you heard at the beginning, it only went

530
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: down seven point six miles. So it was that it

531
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 1: was the heat that got them.

532
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 2: The heat, my god, the heat.

533
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:22,480
Speaker 1: Not even the humidity.

534
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 2: The heat, right, although we will find it's possible that

535
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 2: it's humid down there.

536
00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: Ooh, what it's ease.

537
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 2: That's a really great example of how the super deep borehole,

538
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 2: like rewrote science is. They mapped it all out there

539
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 2: like we're going to get to fifteen kilometers because we'll

540
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 2: be able to withstand the temperatures until then. And then

541
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:45,280
Speaker 2: all of a sudden it got way hotter, way faster,

542
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 2: so much so that the basically what happened with the

543
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 2: pressure and the temperature together turned the rock in that

544
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 2: area essentially plastic key and not even like a hard

545
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 2: plastic like a chlorox bleach bottle. It was like like

546
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 2: a squishy plastic. Yeah. And it was basically like nailing

547
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:13,000
Speaker 2: jellobran gelatin to the wall. That was what they were

548
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 2: trying to do at that point.

549
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:16,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, I mean at that point it was yet

550
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 1: it was over. They realized that they had gone as

551
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:22,480
Speaker 1: far as they could go. That was nineteen eighty nine,

552
00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: Like I said at the beginning, they kept trying for

553
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 1: another few years, I think until nineteen ninety two. Yeah,

554
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: and then they're like, yeah, this is really over. And

555
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 1: I think the whole project was officially sealed in two

556
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: thousand and five. But I mean they had a lot

557
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 1: of employees and stuff you know, that were on the books.

558
00:29:41,040 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 1: I think they weren't even paying them for a while,

559
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: right right.

560
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 2: I think at its peak there were like seven hundred

561
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 2: people who were employed there. If you look at pictures

562
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 2: of the place when it was in full swing, it

563
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 2: looks like a huge factory with one single giant smokestack

564
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 2: and that's actually where the derek for the drill bit went.

565
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:01,719
Speaker 2: But it's like a little mini town almost. But as

566
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 2: it got shut down further and further and they finally

567
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 2: fully mothballed in two thousand and eight, those last few employees, yeah,

568
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 2: they hadn't been paid in six months. But the reason

569
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:14,480
Speaker 2: why it really stopped in nineteen ninety two is because

570
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 2: they had bigger fish to fry, which was their country

571
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 2: had dissolved, and now they had to figure out where

572
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:21,920
Speaker 2: to get funding from. And it turned out that no one,

573
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:24,960
Speaker 2: none of the oligarchs were in any particular mood to

574
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 2: keep funding the super deep borehole, especially because it hadn't

575
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 2: gotten anywhere in three or four years.

576
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a you know, any stagnant project like

577
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:39,120
Speaker 1: that is not sexy anymore and very easy to shut her.

578
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, unfortunately, So all.

579
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 1: Right, maybe we should take a break and we'll talk

580
00:30:44,160 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 1: about what we learned from this super deep borehole. All right,

581
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:16,280
Speaker 1: So we actually discovered a lot scientifically speaking by going

582
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 1: down that low. The first thing they did was like, well,

583
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 1: I guess let's do the obvious thing and change our

584
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 1: temperature maps, because now we know at what point it

585
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:32,960
Speaker 1: gets like super super hot. So who's got an eraser, Ivan,

586
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:35,400
Speaker 1: you have an eraser, you have the only eraser in

587
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 1: the room. Step forward and change those numbers. And they

588
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 1: were like, that's a great start, and let's move on

589
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: from here.

590
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 2: Right, So that was one thing. They also disproved something

591
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 2: that had been around since the thirties. So we talked

592
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 2: about the Moho discontinuity, which is between the mantle and

593
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 2: the crust, way further down than they went, but they

594
00:31:56,400 --> 00:32:00,160
Speaker 2: had expected to go through another discontinuity that was in

595
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 2: the upper crust. It was upper crust, the Conrad discontinuity,

596
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 2: which was also based on the same thing. This guy

597
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 2: Conrad paying attention to seismographic waves suddenly accelerating or speeding

598
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 2: up when it hit this one point in the crust.

599
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 2: It's like there's a discontinuity there. I predict that it's

600
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 2: a difference between granite and basalt. That we've got the

601
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 2: granite up top and then it transitions into basalt and

602
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 2: where they where they, where they meet, that's that discontinuity.

603
00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:34,840
Speaker 2: And it turned out that that was not correct, and

604
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:37,240
Speaker 2: they were kind of mean about it. They called Conrad's

605
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:40,600
Speaker 2: descendants and told them and mocked them over the phone.

606
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I thought it was Conrad Baine and that

607
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 1: they called Todd Bridges his air Victor Conrad. You know

608
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 1: what just occurred to me. I believe when I said discontinuity,

609
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: I bet you that's how the brit say it.

610
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 2: I'll bet you're right. I'd love to hear from our

611
00:32:57,680 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 2: brit friends about that.

612
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:02,440
Speaker 1: I would love to hear that too, as Kyle. Yeah,

613
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 1: but then we'd have to send a voice message. And

614
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 1: I wonder what Kyle sounds like. Actually, I wonder what

615
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: all of our writers sound like. We know what Dave

616
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 1: sounds like because we met him.

617
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. Just blew my top.

618
00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 1: What if, like, we love Livia so much, what if

619
00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 1: we got in touch with Livia and she was like

620
00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 1: gentle blood. She was like a Julia child or something

621
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 1: that would be so fun.

622
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:24,520
Speaker 2: It would be quite surprising.

623
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 1: All right, So you teased liquid very cheekily earlier, and

624
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 1: they discovered that there was liquid water down there, like

625
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 1: much much deeper than they thought water could exist. They

626
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:40,840
Speaker 1: found these cracks that had saline filled water, and they

627
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:42,920
Speaker 1: were like this, this shouldn't be here. This is crazy,

628
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:46,480
Speaker 1: like liquid is actually flowing down here. The Soviets like

629
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:49,440
Speaker 1: released that information and most of the world at person

630
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, right, like we're gonna buy that coming

631
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 1: from you.

632
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:55,640
Speaker 2: Right, So yeah. The first fourteen years from nineteen seventy

633
00:33:55,640 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 2: to nineteen eighty four, the USSR, which was very famous

634
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 2: for keeping its scientific progress and finding secret, it didn't

635
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 2: share anything about this. I'm not even sure the outside

636
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:10,919
Speaker 2: world knew that they were digging a hole. And then

637
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty four, at a geological conference, like a

638
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:19,040
Speaker 2: world geological conference that they actually held in Moscow, they

639
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 2: announced that they had dug the world's deepest hole and

640
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 2: blew everyone away. And it seems like the reason that

641
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 2: they held this conference in nineteen eighty four was that

642
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,480
Speaker 2: they just had dug the world's deepest hole, and they

643
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:32,600
Speaker 2: wanted to tell everybody.

644
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:35,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's kind of funny that they didn't believe

645
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:37,440
Speaker 1: certain parts of it because it was coming from the

646
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 1: former Soviet Union, you.

647
00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:41,279
Speaker 2: Know, right, well this is full on Soviet Union too.

648
00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty four. Oh yeah, yeah, but yeah, they

649
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 2: were like, how how would this even happen? Like, explain

650
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:49,600
Speaker 2: to us how there's water. Yeah.

651
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 1: So what they found out was that, well, at first

652
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: they thought that it was squeezed out of crystals. Perhaps

653
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: it's pretty good, guests, but they found out the opposite

654
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:01,399
Speaker 1: was true because of the study in twenty twenty three,

655
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:04,279
Speaker 1: they found out that when these continental plates subduct, which

656
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:07,080
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot about lately, like go under one

657
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 1: another and into the mantle in this case, they take

658
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 1: water with them along the way, and that can make

659
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:16,360
Speaker 1: it all the way to that outer core. It interacts

660
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:19,719
Speaker 1: with that molten iron, I think, and creates this like

661
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:22,840
Speaker 1: kind of kind of filmy gook between the core, and

662
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:25,440
Speaker 1: then that presses into crystals.

663
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 2: Right. Did you know that you could press water into crystals?

664
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:32,319
Speaker 1: I didn't know any of this stuff. No.

665
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:34,840
Speaker 2: I also didn't know you could get water from crystals.

666
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:38,719
Speaker 2: But think about like the mind boggling pressure that suggests

667
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 2: are going on at this point in the Earth.

668
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:42,800
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, for sure.

669
00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:47,680
Speaker 2: It's so cool. Probably the biggest thing that everybody's socks

670
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:50,680
Speaker 2: were knocked off by was that they were like, oh yeah,

671
00:35:50,719 --> 00:35:53,880
Speaker 2: by the way, seven kilometers down, almost four and a

672
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:59,400
Speaker 2: half miles under the Earth's surface, we found marine organism

673
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:04,360
Speaker 2: fossils dating back like two billion years top that comrades

674
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 2: pretty fun.

675
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: And I bet they were spooky looking, like a like

676
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 1: a you know, I saw garfish the other day when

677
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:16,440
Speaker 1: I was paddle boarding in a lake and I almost

678
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:19,880
Speaker 1: fell off because I looked down and it was right

679
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:21,760
Speaker 1: at the surface on my left and you know, a garfish.

680
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 1: This was like two and a half feet long.

681
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:24,359
Speaker 2: Yeah.

682
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 1: I reacted with such a start. I went, oh my

683
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 1: god that I lost my balance and almost fell off

684
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 1: the paddle board.

685
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:31,239
Speaker 2: Meh.

686
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:33,480
Speaker 1: But and then I had a fear of like, you know,

687
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:35,880
Speaker 1: this thing was some prehistoric creature that was going to

688
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:37,480
Speaker 1: attack me once I was in the water, which is

689
00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:39,080
Speaker 1: of course not true. That thing was out of there

690
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:42,439
Speaker 1: second it saw me, right, But I just imagine these

691
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:45,160
Speaker 1: fossils down there. I mean, these things had to have

692
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:46,839
Speaker 1: like teeth, they had to be creepy.

693
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 2: Right, I don't know. I didn't see any pictures of

694
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:52,840
Speaker 2: them two billion years ago. I'm not sure.

695
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:55,080
Speaker 1: I've got a picture in my mind. It looks like

696
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:55,920
Speaker 1: an alligator gar.

697
00:36:56,160 --> 00:36:58,840
Speaker 2: Okay, that's great, let's go with that, all right. But

698
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:01,440
Speaker 2: the thing is is that's it doesn't suggest as a

699
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 2: lot of sites who sensationalize this super deep borehole as

700
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 2: we'll see, this doesn't mean that these things were ever

701
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 2: dwelling like four and a half miles beneath the Earth's surface,

702
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:16,640
Speaker 2: right right, right. These were embedded two billion years ago

703
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:21,040
Speaker 2: and then carried down through the cross toward the mantle

704
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:25,040
Speaker 2: as part of that amazing plate tectonic process that keeps

705
00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:25,800
Speaker 2: the Earth going.

706
00:37:26,480 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean what I wonder is if I mean

707
00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:34,399
Speaker 1: this was started in nineteen seventy discontinued in nineteen eighty nine.

708
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 1: That was a long time ago, and I wonder if

709
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:40,480
Speaker 1: it's possible with today's technology to reach the mantle, and

710
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:42,880
Speaker 1: if anyone is interested in that anymore.

711
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:46,400
Speaker 2: I wondered if it was if I think I'm sure

712
00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:49,280
Speaker 2: that they are geologists and scientists who are still quite

713
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:50,319
Speaker 2: interested in doing that.

714
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 1: They want to, right, they want to. The funding dollars exactly.

715
00:37:55,239 --> 00:38:00,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I don't know that there's much much to

716
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:03,160
Speaker 2: be gained from, you know, reaching the mantle if you're

717
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 2: a fossil fuel company, and that's if you're not getting

718
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:09,520
Speaker 2: money from governments for digging deep holes, you're getting it

719
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 2: from fossil fuel companies. They probably, I would estimate, fund

720
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 2: ninety percent of the holes that are being dug around

721
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:16,799
Speaker 2: the world right now.

722
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:19,879
Speaker 1: They're like, is there a giant bag of money down there?

723
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 2: Exactly? Yeah, they're like, no, no, but not exactly.

724
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 1: Well you've lost my ear.

725
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like, get rid of this guy. So yes, though,

726
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:34,160
Speaker 2: it's possible that some scientists will make it to the mantle.

727
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 2: And the reason why is because they will be drilling

728
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 2: not through you know, super thick parts of the crust,

729
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:44,080
Speaker 2: but thin, thin parts of the oceanic.

730
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:45,760
Speaker 1: Crust, right, and that counts.

731
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:48,840
Speaker 2: It definitely counts because you're still reaching the mantle.

732
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:49,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.

733
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:52,799
Speaker 2: No, there's some places where the crust is so thin.

734
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:55,799
Speaker 2: How thin is it? It's so thin, it's only five

735
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:59,399
Speaker 2: and a half kilometers thick, and that is Yeah, that's

736
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:05,239
Speaker 2: you know, almost a third of the depth of the

737
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:06,319
Speaker 2: cola super deep bore.

738
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's nineteen sixties level digging exactly.

739
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 2: So there was actually a group that I guess was

740
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:16,000
Speaker 2: attempting that they dug in a site off the coast

741
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 2: of Costa Rica. They dug hole twelve fifty six D.

742
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:22,920
Speaker 2: They need to step up their name and convention.

743
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 1: I think maybe that stands for Dominoes.

744
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:31,279
Speaker 2: It probably doesn't sponsored it. The NOID was on board. Yeah,

745
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:34,719
Speaker 2: in the early two thousands they started digging, and I

746
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:37,720
Speaker 2: guess the NOID got bored and stopped giving them money.

747
00:39:38,160 --> 00:39:42,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, how far did they get? Stopped at one

748
00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 1: point two five kilometers.

749
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:46,919
Speaker 2: Which is so deep, so shallow. We're not even gonna

750
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:48,360
Speaker 2: bother of translating that into.

751
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 1: Miles exactly, but kind of. One of the fun things

752
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:55,200
Speaker 1: is they they removed an intact piece of crust. I

753
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 1: guess stepped it in some marin era. I couldn't resist

754
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:02,520
Speaker 1: this one, so off the rails with the Dominoes theme

755
00:40:02,560 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 1: that I've really tried to avoid and then embraced.

756
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 2: If you like their marinara, you should try their garlic

757
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:08,240
Speaker 2: butter dipping sauce.

758
00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:10,359
Speaker 1: Man, why don't they sponsor us?

759
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:10,880
Speaker 2: I don't know.

760
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:12,240
Speaker 1: They really wish these were ads.

761
00:40:12,239 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 2: Everybody I would probably do Dominoes ads for free pizza.

762
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 1: I am a shamed, Well not a shame. I'm proud

763
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 1: to say. Maybe I haven't had a Domino's pizza since

764
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:22,800
Speaker 1: probably college.

765
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:26,400
Speaker 2: That's that's our go to pizza. If we get giant

766
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:29,759
Speaker 2: chain pizza. Really, yeah, I still love Dominoes.

767
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: I guess I don't get any giant chain pizza. Not

768
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 1: as a stand. We just have so many good pizzaias

769
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:35,840
Speaker 1: in Atlanta all over the place.

770
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:40,720
Speaker 2: Yes, that is true. There are not as many in Florida. Okay,

771
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:43,320
Speaker 2: I don't know why, but there's not. But yes, Atlanta

772
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:46,160
Speaker 2: is filthy, rich with really good pizza places.

773
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:48,520
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say that, like you,

774
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:50,799
Speaker 1: me and MoMA wouldn't stand for anything that doesn't get

775
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 1: there in thirty minutes.

776
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 2: Where it's free.

777
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:55,239
Speaker 1: I'm hungry now, Josh, you know that.

778
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:58,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, there's just not that many around here.

779
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:02,719
Speaker 1: All right, Well, well maybe we can take a meeting

780
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 1: with sales and turn this into liquid gold.

781
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:07,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, can I have your free Dominoes if that's how

782
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:08,239
Speaker 2: they say?

783
00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:11,719
Speaker 1: Okay, sweet, we should mention this last little addendum. It

784
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:14,399
Speaker 1: was kind of fun the Germans. Of course, they tried

785
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:18,759
Speaker 1: to dig a deeper hole in the nineties and they

786
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 1: actually got to some higher temperatures their bits, the German

787
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 1: bits were able to withstand five hundred degrees fahrenheit or

788
00:41:26,600 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 1: two hundred and sixty degrees celsius, so that was a

789
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:32,440
Speaker 1: big breakthrough. But they stopped at about five and a

790
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 1: half or five point six miles down or nine kilometers.

791
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:41,200
Speaker 1: But the cool part about this is they got a

792
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:45,520
Speaker 1: Dutch artist named Lota Geeven I'm not sure if that's

793
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:49,120
Speaker 1: pronounced right. She lowered her microphone down in there, obviously

794
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 1: protected by heat shields and stuff like that, dropped it

795
00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:56,640
Speaker 1: down that German borehole and picked up a very rumbling

796
00:41:56,719 --> 00:42:00,080
Speaker 1: sound that science still cannot explain, and she said it

797
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:03,800
Speaker 1: made her feel very small. First time in my life,

798
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 1: this big ball that we live on came to life,

799
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:10,160
Speaker 1: and it sounded haunting, and she said some people thought

800
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:13,400
Speaker 1: it sounded like hell, or like the planet was breathing.

801
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:16,799
Speaker 1: So it's like, you know, that came from an old

802
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:20,279
Speaker 1: Russian sort of suspicion that they were digging into hell.

803
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:24,480
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, there was an urban legend that started about

804
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 2: the time they stopped digging at the borehole that said

805
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 2: that the reason that they stopped digging was because they

806
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:35,320
Speaker 2: had punctured through the roof of Hell and that somebody

807
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:39,600
Speaker 2: had lowered a microphone down and they captured the sounds

808
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:44,120
Speaker 2: of tormented souls in Hell screaming. And there are actual

809
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:48,400
Speaker 2: YouTube videos that present this seriously, and you can go

810
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:51,720
Speaker 2: hear it, and it's the most ridiculous thing you'll hear today.

811
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:57,640
Speaker 2: But I also want to point out that what is it?

812
00:42:57,680 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 2: Lottie Gervin even, Yeah, yeah, like you said that, scientists

813
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 2: can't explain the sound that she actually did record. That's

814
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 2: not to say like this's a supernatural sound. They're just like,

815
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:11,480
Speaker 2: there's so many processes going on down there, and we

816
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:15,480
Speaker 2: so little understand that part of the earth. We can't

817
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:18,319
Speaker 2: say what what makes that sound, But we think it's

818
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:20,520
Speaker 2: a pretty cool sound and maybe someday we will be

819
00:43:20,560 --> 00:43:23,319
Speaker 2: able to explain it. What they are quite sure about

820
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 2: is that is not the sounds of Hell.

821
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:27,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that's not a real place.

822
00:43:27,800 --> 00:43:30,480
Speaker 2: I yeah, you should go listen to our episode on

823
00:43:30,520 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 2: Hell people. It was a pretty good one.

824
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:35,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I imagine that there's just sounds like

825
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 1: a groan or you know, something moving around probably makes

826
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:40,080
Speaker 1: a sound.

827
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:43,880
Speaker 2: Right Yeah, it sounds really really industrial, but there's no

828
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 2: pattern to it, so like a patterned industrial sound is

829
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 2: what it sounds like. It's still it's pretty faint.

830
00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: I bet some German musician turned that into a beat

831
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:55,680
Speaker 1: or something.

832
00:43:55,960 --> 00:44:01,839
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, let's see. I think that's about it. Yeah,

833
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 2: that's about it.

834
00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:03,240
Speaker 1: Great.

835
00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:07,000
Speaker 2: Okay, Well that was the Cola Super Deep Borehole. Everybody.

836
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:10,320
Speaker 2: Hope you enjoyed it. Sorry for the anal bleaching references,

837
00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:14,480
Speaker 2: and I guess since I mentioned anal bleaching again, it's

838
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 2: time for listener mail.

839
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:20,680
Speaker 1: In fairness, you can't talk about the Cola Super Deeporehole

840
00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 1: without talking about that, agreed. You know, all right, I'm

841
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:28,800
Speaker 1: gonna call this feedback from the Mash episode. Hey, guys,

842
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:31,279
Speaker 1: thank you for the episode on MASH. I was seven

843
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:33,279
Speaker 1: years old in nineteen seventy two, and I really loved

844
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:35,040
Speaker 1: the show so much that I learned to play the

845
00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:37,920
Speaker 1: theme song on the piano. My parents were too happy

846
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 1: to find out that the song discussed suicide, but I

847
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:43,480
Speaker 1: don't even think I knew what that was at the time. Also,

848
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:45,600
Speaker 1: there was at least one episode, because you guys talk

849
00:44:45,640 --> 00:44:47,839
Speaker 1: about the camp moving where there was a bug out

850
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:52,360
Speaker 1: where the camp move closer or farther from the front lines.

851
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:54,480
Speaker 1: And we got someone else that wrote in that said

852
00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:56,400
Speaker 1: the same thing, and like sort of the joke on

853
00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:58,320
Speaker 1: the show was that it was like kind of exactly

854
00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:02,520
Speaker 1: the same. Okay, they clearly didn't move this at And

855
00:45:02,560 --> 00:45:05,279
Speaker 1: then Dana Carson from Cleveland also says this. It never

856
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:08,600
Speaker 1: occurred to me actually that BJ and Hawkeye were alcoholics.

857
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 1: I just assume they drank to pass the time. Yeah, sure,

858
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 1: just like alcoholics, right, Yeah, I mean I threw that

859
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 1: word around. You know, it was just sort of supposed

860
00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:24,879
Speaker 1: to be funny. Maybe they were just enjoyed drinking in

861
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:26,719
Speaker 1: the hellish board they were in to pass the time.

862
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:29,680
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it was a device to just show like, yeah,

863
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 2: you had to self medicator else you'd go crazy from

864
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:33,799
Speaker 2: the whole thing.

865
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 1: And that is Dana Carson from Cleveland who says in

866
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:39,240
Speaker 1: a PS, I've been to Toledo and Tony Pakos many times.

867
00:45:39,320 --> 00:45:44,959
Speaker 2: Awesome way to go, Dana, right, Dana, Great, thanks a lot, Dana.

868
00:45:45,040 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 2: There's actually a Dana Corporation in around Toledo, if I'm

869
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 2: not mistaken. Maybe it's named after you, Dana. You should

870
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:52,239
Speaker 2: go find out.

871
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:52,920
Speaker 1: Cool.

872
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:56,280
Speaker 2: If you have a name like a corporation around Toledo,

873
00:45:56,560 --> 00:46:01,400
Speaker 2: say like Libby or Owens or Jeep. We want to

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Speaker 2: hear from you. You can email us at stuff podcast

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Speaker 2: at iHeartRadio dot com.

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Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.