Harder to Dig

We have managed to reach and explore places beyond our planet much further than we have managed to reach and explore what is just below our feet. Of the average 6400 kilometers that lies between us and the center of the Earth, we have only peeped into about 0.2%. Only once, through a 9-inch wide keyhole.

And that was way back in 1992, when the Russians after 22 years of trying to dig the deepest hole into the ground, concluded they could go no further. The maximum depth of about 12.3 kilometers that they had reached in 1989, continues to remain the deepest journey ever made by humankind towards the center of the Earth.

They would have had to dig 22.7 kilometers more just to penetrate the Earth's Crust, a layer of onion-skin compared to the overall depth. Among many other unexpected discoveries, which would go on to challenge existing Geological knowledge, temperatures at this depth turned out to be 80° higher than the expected 100°C, which combined with the extreme pressure made further drilling unfeasible.

Thanks to our little hole, rocks and fossils from as far as the Archaean age, saw the light of day for the first time in 2.5 billion years.

The Deepest Hole