Talk:Kola Superdeep Borehole/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Comment

The link at the bottom of the page "Surprises of the Kola Borehole - May 2001" links to a homepage containing some strange theories. The author has some wild ideas about gravity for example. Can someone knowledgeable within the subject check the facts?

Agreed - gone. We need references, not wild speculative nonsense. Vsmith 23:39, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment

The final link at the bottom of the page is to the 80 minute 'The Energy Non-Crisis' video which only mentions the Kola borehole in passing and refers to the 'massive amount of oil' it produced. Is this link, which is currently broken (it can be pointed to the 8 part speech on youtube if necessary) appropriate here? I think it is only very loosely related and should be removed. It's presence seems more like someone is pushing a political agenda rather than informing readers about the borehole.63.147.189.178 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 22:02, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Depth

I believe, changes of the depth from "12.262 kilometers" to "12,262 meters" by 200.247.107.254 was fine. This seems to be quite a common convention in Wikipedia (correct me, if I'm wrong, please). Cmapm 19:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

This article says they found rocks "2.7 billion years old" at the bottom of the hole. How do we know for certain that they are that old? The idea that the Earth itself is that old is only a theory... If carbon dateing was used it would be very inaccurate, carbon dateing loses all authority due to inacuracies when dateing something over 60,000 years old. Could someone please fix this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ragz5 (talk • contribs) 19:58, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

And gravity is only a theory. There's no need to fix anything here. Wikipedia uses reliable sources, and in this case that means mainstream scientific sources are what is required. Don't worry, C14 dating wasn't used. Doug Weller (talk) 18:13, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Band stuff

Removed band promotional material from the article three times. If the mentioned Philly band is notable, then write an article. It has no relevance for this article. Vsmith (talk) 15:37, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Age of Rocks

Is there really no citation readily available about the 2.7 Billion year old rocks mentioned in the article? I feel this is a very important fact to be properly documented. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.203.148.131 (talk) 20:39, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I thought that I'd found one in a Russian book on drilling techniques but found that they referred to this article. However, there are certainly good sources to support an Archaean age, which means greater than 2.5 billion, so I'll change it to that. Mikenorton (talk) 21:13, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Longest hole?

"The longest hole ever drilled is the 12,290 m (40,300 ft) Maersk Oil BD-04A well at Al-Shaheen field in Qatar, but the Maersk hole was primarily horizontal.[2]"

Don't rail tunnels count as drilled holes? At 53.85km the Seikan Tunnel is far longer than the Maersk hole. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.200.36.104 (talk) 06:27, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

The Seikan Tunnel is a set of holes joined together, not one continuous drill 99.236.221.124 (talk) 19:44, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

New Projects

The institute in charge of the hole is doing some new project where they make a sound at the bottom of the hole and then capture it in microphones all over the Earth, I forget what it's called. Can anyone help me out with this? I'm no good at Russian... 99.236.221.124 (talk) 19:50, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Deepest hole?

"The deepest, SG-3, reached 12,261 metres (40,230 ft) in 1989, and remains the deepest hole ever drilled.[1] The longest hole ever drilled is the 12,290 m (40,300 ft) Maersk Oil BD-04A well at Al-Shaheen field in Qatar.[2]"

Seems that "deepest" means the vertical component of the hole's dimensions, whereas longest means the combined length? If so, the above quotation is correct, but a bit confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.107.0.73 (talk) 20:14, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Longest refers to lateral as well as horizontal length. The oil fields for example drill relatively shallow, but then have pipes that extend left and right for miles in order to get oil which is farther away from the original drilling hole. 99.236.221.124 (talk) 19:43, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The time required for drilling the BD-04A well in Qatar seems very short

In May 2008, the GSF Rig 127 operated by Transocean drilled the world record extended reach well BD-04A in the field. The well was drilled incident free to a record measured depth of 40,320 ft (12,289 m) including a record horizontal reach of 35,770 ft (10,902 m) in 36 days.[1]

The time required for drilling the BD-04A well at Al Shaheen oil field in Qatar seems very short: only 36 days ! It corresponds to an average drilling rate of about 341 m/day. The total depth is also unclear. This should be carefully verified. Thanks, Shinkolobwe (talk) 16:16, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Kola is no longer deepest.

the page Sakhalin-I states "On 28 January 2011, Exxon Neftegas Ltd., operator of the Sakhalin-1 project, drilled the currently world's longest extended-reach well. It has surpassed both the Al Shaheen well and the previous decades-long leader Kola Superdeep Borehole as the world's longest borehole. The Odoptu OP-11 Well reached a measured total depth of 12,345 metres (40,502 ft) and a horizontal displacement of 11,475 metres (37,648 ft). Exxon Neftegas completed the well in 60 days.[2]" Do we consider the reference included to be enough verification?Cliff (talk) 21:38, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

The term 'measured depth' refers to the measured length along a borehole as opposed to 'true vertical depth' which refers to the depth below datum at the bottom of the hole. The new Sakhalin well now holds the record for measured depth, i.e. it is the longest borehole ever drilled, whereas the Kola borehole still holds the record for true vertical depth. That record is unlikely to be broken any time soon as no commercial oil well is ever going to go that deep. Mikenorton (talk) 22:33, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
This isn't made very clear in the article. You can understand my confusion. Shall we make a stab at clarifying this point?Cliff (talk) 16:52, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
I've added a bit in about measured depth; is that clearer now? Mikenorton (talk) 21:06, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
A bit clearer yes, and the link to measured depth offers more clarification. Thanks for the help.Cliff (talk) 17:07, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Neither of the are ture anymore, the longest well in the work is 40,603ft / 12376m MD. It was drilled in June 2012 by Exxon in date is 14-Jun-2012 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.188.236.144 (talk) 16:15, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Mir mine

I just added {{Distinguish2|[[Mir mine]], a large open-pit diamond mine in Russia}} because a great many images of that mine loose on the net say they are of this borehole.[1] Of course, it is ludicrous to suppose a "borehole" would begin with an open-pit mine, but many people have made the mistake. I offer the link to help people sort out the confusion if they come here from one of those mistakes, as I did. If editors find the way I included the link objectionable, I ask that the link to the other article be preserved in such a way as to fulfill my original purpose. -- ke4roh (talk) 20:13, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

More detail in the article on Boring than here.

Not that there is more detail overall, but I thought that it was interesting that the article on Boring (earth) has this to say in the section on the Kola borehole: "In the 1970s and early 1980s the USSR attempted to drill a hole through the crust, to sample the Mohorovicic Discontinuity. The deepest hole ever drilled failed not because of lack of money or time, but because of the physics of rocks within the crust. The hole achieved approximately 12,000 metres depth, a depth at which rock begins to act more like a plastic solid than a rigid solid. The rock also approached temperatures of several hundred degrees Celsius, requiring that the drilling fluid be refrigerated before being sent to the cutting face of the drill. As the drill bits burnt out and were removed for replacement, the hole simply flowed closed, and the rock had to be re-drilled. Due to the temperature, the drill bits burnt out before achieving any headway. The hole was scrapped." And that it doesn't go into nearly as much detail on the page on the Kola project itself..45Colt 06:21, 24 January 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by .45Colt (talk • contribs)

This has to be fixed.

Why is "measured depth" confused with vertical depth in the lede?? It should be obvious that if a term is deceptive (to someone not familiar with the jargon) then it should NOT be used (at least not without clear explanation of meaning). Both of the other wells mentioned in the lede are justified by use of a PR blurb from an interested party, and imho that FAILS to be acceptable references. Putting that aside, is is compeletely misleading to mention them without clearly stating that the ARE NOT deeper than the Kola. What does their length have to do with their depth. I will rewrite the very misleading paragraph.Abitslow (talk) 18:03, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Z44 now the deepest oil well

On the page about Sakhalin-I, it states On 27 August 2012, Exxon Neftegas Ltd beat its own record by completing Z-44 Chayvo well. This ERD well reached a measured total depth of 12,376 meters (40,604 ft).[2]

This supersedes the information given on this page, I feel I ought to edit it myself, but am still a little new to this and don't feel confident to do it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Writingalltheway (talk • contribs) 15:12, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Fossils?

What about alleged fossils found very deep? 5.34.82.212 (talk) 17:03, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Not the Mir mine

I have restored the text

Not to be confused with Mir mine, a large open-pit diamond mine in Russia.

which was removed this past December. I agree that nobody in their right mind looking for one or the other by name would stumble across this article. But, if you do an image search for "deepest hole", you get pictures of Mir Mine, and an image search for "Kola superdeep borehole" turns up a similar set of results featuring Mir Mine (with some pictures of Kola). It is because of this apparent confusion about deep holes (and the difference between a borehole and a strip mine (duh!)) that I believe it's important to provide this cross-reference. -- ke4roh (talk) 12:53, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I put it back again. Same rationale. (And yes, the confusion on image searches persists.) -- ke4roh (talk) 15:34, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
That's an invalid rationale. If you look at image search for "deepest hole" you cited, you will see lots and lots of other "holes", and if someone brainlessly uses image search results without actually verifying what they see, that't the problem of brain-dead people, not wikipedia. Heck, I searchwed images for "Donald Trump" and you know what? The first page of results shows image of Vladimir Putin! :-) Staszek Lem (talk) 17:31, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

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Current conditions at borehole?

The photo dated 2007 shows a tower-like superstructure, while the photo dated 2012 appears to show a ruined building with scattered debris. A Russian reference refers to plans to scrap the equipment at the well. I wouldn't know where to look, and I don't speak or read Russian, but maybe an editor could find more information on the current condition of the well, what happened to the tower, etc. Given the historic nature of the site, I think that would be a valuable contribution to this article. GeoGreg (talk) 23:10, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Al Shaheen Well Deeper or not?

The page currently conflictingly presents the borehole as being both surpassed by the Al Shaheen well but also as still being the deepest artificial excavation. Which is true, or is there more nuance which needs to be cleared up? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.251.175.52 (talk) 20:14, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

There is a difference between the total length and the depth. Ruslik_Zero 20:46, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
The article states that the Kola borehole is the deepest borehole. The article also states that the Kola borehole was also the longest borehole. The article also states that the Kola borehole is not now the longest borehole - that length record was beaten by the Al Shaheen borehole. All these statements are correct. Deeper is not the same as longer. There is no conflict. However, I have changed the text in the article, which I hope makes the situation clearer. GeoWriter (talk) 21:05, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. That makes a lot more sense now. 176.251.175.52 (talk) 12:45, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
Note the graph of borehole's deviation from vertical (page 10). The deviation was in fact 840 m, thus the total length of the third hole is unknown in fact and it definitely more than 12,262 m (and the second hole is maybe longer than the third one). Thus the claim of Al Shaheen well being longer is pretty weak.--Jklamo (talk) 12:40, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

International System of Units

Why are the depths in miles? Like most people outside America I have only ever used metric units (SI units)...the only country I know of that still uses Imperial units is the USA. According to MOS:UNITS "the primary units chosen will be SI units, non-SI units officially accepted for use with the SI, or such other units as are conventional in reliable-source discussions of the article topic". So, seeing as the article is about a Russian science project, shouldn't all depths be SI units (ie kms rather than miles)? Nearly no one outside the USA uses these units and the style guide appears to say that we should be using SI units in the majority of cases, especially for non-USA related articles. Cheers. 114.198.99.209 (talk) 22:48, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

MOS:UNITS also states: "For details on when and how to provide a conversion, see the section § Unit conversions.". This is MOS:CONVERSIONS, which states: "Where English-speaking countries use different units for the same quantity, provide a conversion in parentheses: the Mississippi River is 2,320 miles (3,734 km) long; the Murray River is 2,508 kilometres (1,558 mi) long. But in science-related articles, supplying such conversion is not required unless there is some special reason to do so.". Imperial units are not required in this Kola Superdeep Borehole article but there seems to be no rule against their inclusion. GeoWriter (talk) 19:59, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
  1. ^ Transocean Ltd. Press Release (2008). "Transocean GSF Rig 127 Drills Deepest Extended-Reach Well", http://www.deepwater.com/fw/main/Transocean-GSF-Rig-127-Drills-Deepest-Extended-Reach-Well-283C4.html, Accessed 2009-10-21
  2. ^ Sakhalin-1 Project Drills World's Longest Extended-Reach Well
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