15 BIGGEST Holes in the Earth

our planet's surface is covered in Peaks and troughs that have been formed naturally over millions of years the surface layer known as the crust is so thick that there's no known cavity that burrows through it to reach what's beneath but there's certainly plenty of holes that reach far down to extraordinary depths it's time to go deeper than ever before as we explore the 15 biggest holes on Earth number 15 the cola super deep borehole Russia in the 1960s and 70s the United States and the Soviet Union were competing on a number of fronts but while history remembers the space and nuclear arms races there was another technological challenge that both countries attempted the race to the Center of the Earth of course no one ever believed that they'd reach the planet's core but the aim was to reach the layer beneath the crust if possible and this required extremely complicated engineering to overcome the temperatures and pressures that they'd encounter in the end the Soviets won this battle and to this day the cola super deep borehole near the Russian border with Norway is vertically the deepest hole to have ever been dug if you went to the site now you'd struggle to even find it because the top has long been welded shut but this was the site of great mystery and Legend while operations were ongoing drilling began in 1970 with a custom designed euromash 4E rig and when it ended in 1989 the 9 inch or 20 23 centimeter wide hole had reached an astonishing depth of 7.619 miles or 12.3 kilometers the intent was trying to dig deeper but at these depths things started acting very strangely the temperature was almost double what scientific models had expected which meant the equipment struggle to operate and the combination of this and the pressure caused the rock to act like melted plastic and this stinky substance was nearly impossible to drill through for the more strange sounds were recorded from the hole even when the drill was inactive this led to the Superstition that the hole had managed to dig all the way to the underworld and still known locally as the hell hole it'll probably be a long time until another project like this is ever attempted again number 14. darfa is a gas crater the darvaza gas crater known by locals as the door to hell is 150 miles away from the capital city of Turkmenistan and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the area it's a sinister-looking place even more so on the days that desert creatures are attracted to the flames and sometimes swarms of thousands of spiders can be seen plummeting into the pit suckered in by the hypnotic fire it hasn't always been this way though in 1971 when the country was still part of the Soviet Union a team of geologists was searching for oil fields having found what they believed to be one they began to drill the problem was they were wrong they were actually drilling into a pocket of natural gas that collapsed under the weight of their equipment this created a crater that was 226 feet across and 98 feet deep and was releasing huge amounts of gas into the air animals in the surrounding area began to die and it was decided the only way to prevent a catastrophe was to set fire to the gas by throwing grenades into it something that's often done to control roll huge releases known as a flaring they believed it would burn out in a few weeks time but more than 50 years later it's still burning plans are supposedly being put into place to try to extinguish the flames and find a way to capture the gas but as of yet a safe way of doing so hasn't been agreed upon number 13 Xiao Shai Tian Kang the shenshi cluster is a series of sinkholes in the fengjay county of the chonching municipality and there are some of the most spectacular natural features in the world one of them known as Yoshi Chang Kang is one of the deepest sinkholes to have ever been discovered and is not only a popular terrorist spot but it's been a culturally significant place to the locals for hundreds of years often referred to as the Heavenly pit the sinkhole is just over 2 000 feet long 1700 feet wide and up to 2100 feet deep formed by an underwater river that is slowly eroded away at the Limestone Bedrock the sinkhole actually has two Caverns one on top of another with an Ever widening open that connects the two during the rainy season water gushes into it over a waterfall which creates an incredible Vista and attracts thousands of visitors each year due to the risk of injury for those wanting to venture into the sinkhole authorities have constructed a staircase to Grant access to the lower level which because it's so deep contains 2 800 steps to put this in a perspective if you wanted to climb to the top of the Empire State Building you'd only need to walk up 1575 steps number 12 the Berkeley pit Butte Montana first opened in 1955 the Berkeley pit in Butte Montana is one of the largest man-made holes in the United States and is currently one of the most dangerous the open pit mine was originally operated by the Anaconda Copper mining company and by the time it was closed in 1982 it's thought a billion tons of material had been removed from the site around 0.75 percent of this was copper which was the main valuable substance that It produced but it also proved to be a source of silver gold and other various Metals too although in Far lower quantities once digging finally ended the pit measured a massive one mile long half a mile wide and Seventeen hundred feet deep but in many ways this was just the beginning of the story as there were no more plans to mine at the site the water pumps in a nearby mine were turned off and this resulted in the Berkeley pit filling with water at a rate of around 12 feet per year right now the water is approximately 900 feet deep and this has caused a real problem its presence has allowed the pyrite and sulfide minerals that are present in the pit walls to Decay and form acid that's dissolved into the water and this means it's got a pH level of 2.5 which is the same as lemon juice or gastric acid this has caused further chemicals to seep into the water from the rock but it's become a serious environmental hazard in 1995 for example a flock of geese landed on the water in the pit and at least 300 of them died within a matter of hours while in 2016 several thousands snow geese suffered the same fate efforts are now underway to try to clean the pit and to deter Wildlife from settling there and in the meantime it's also the site of a museum and a viewing platform which allows visitors to walk out above the deadly water and get a bird's eye view of the huge pit number 11. G can storm drain Tokyo human development on land was once opened fields and forests that has a huge effect on the environment but one of the biggest impacts is the question of where natural rain water and flood water goes when it falls on paved roads and concrete it has no means of naturally draining away so Town planners have to build artificial drainage capacity to handle that one of the largest networks like this in the world is the Jeep hand storm drain in Tokyo that was built to keep the city in operation no matter what the weather and mitigate the impact on its almost 14 million residents it's officially known as the metropolitan area outer discharge Channel this storm drain was built between 1992 and 2006 at an estimated cost of around 3 billion dollars and it's made up of four miles worth of tunnels that reach depths of around 165 feet this all connects to an enormous underground reservoir called the temple that measures 580 by 256 by 83 feet and with the use of pumps is able to clear about 53 1000 gallons of water per second into the Evo river which is the equivalent of an Olympic-sized swimming pool every 12 seconds the project to build the storm drain was criticized at the time because of the cost and to push it to its limit would require a once in every 200-year severity of storm but with changing climate around the world it's already proven to be a success in recent years and has prevented as many as 97 subway stations from being completely inundated after the development of intense weather systems number 10. the Kimberly diamond mine South Africa although today it looks like a large lake and a sinkhole the Kimberly diamond mine was one of the largest producers of rare gemstones in the world and is often claimed to be the deepest hand-dug hole on Earth the first diamonds were found there on the site in 1871 which at that time was a farm owned by the De Beers Brothers there was a scramble to buy plots of land and soon as many as 50 000 people were involved in digging the hole with picks and shovels between 1871 and 1914 also known as the big hole by the time it was believed to have had all the diamonds removed it had a surface area of 42 Acres was 1519 feet wide and 790 feet deep in total 13.6 million carats of diamonds are thought to have been retrieved during that time and this launched the De Beers company as one of the world's most famous diamond miners further exploration at the Kimberly diamond mine was seen as being too dangerous so it was partially filled in and allowed to collect water but further tunnels were subsequently dug beneath the main pit to depths of up to 3 600 feet it's extraordinary that the main mine reached as low as it did without the technology that's available today and show just how desperate people were at the time to have the opportunity to make their Fortune number nine the devil's sinkhole in Rock Springs Texas there's a huge Cavern carved from the Limestone Bedrock that's built up such a reputation over the years and it's known as the devil's sinkhole at 400 feet deep it's the largest opening like this in the state and is thought to have formed many thousands of years ago when an underground cave in the Edwards Plateau became so large that the ceiling collapsed Expeditions into the sinkhole found stalactites and more interestingly arrowheads and other artifacts which suggests it played a significant role in Native American communities where it's believed holes like these are conduits to the gods and the underworld more recently Cowboys and cavers used to seek refuge in the sinkhole and extra graffiti into the walls but now it's mainly known as the home to millions of Mexican free-tailed bats as the sun begins to set each night you'll see a few of them flying out to begin their search for food and then suddenly a huge mass of hundreds of thousands of them begin to swarm out in one of the most astonishing displays of the natural world that you'll see anywhere in the United States it's becoming such a popular or site that access to the sinkholes is now limited to prevent people from interfering with the bat's habitat but evening flight tours can be arranged to see the phenomenon from above number eight the chukikamata copper mine Chile the chuki kamata mine and Kalma Chile holds the record for being the largest open pick copper mine in terms of the amount of material that's been removed in the world it's a region that's long been associated with the retrieval of the metal with evidence suggesting it's been going on for at least 1500 years but things really stepped up again in 1882 following the Chilean Civil War and continued expanding for the next decade the installation of flotation and smelting facilities as well as huge copper refining factories meant that by the 1970s it was producing half a million tons of copper per year there's no signs of it slowing down anytime soon currently the Pit's above 2.7 miles long 1.9 miles wide and it's more than 3 000 feet deep as well as producing copper it's also one of the most important sources of molybdenum in the world which is a metal that's used in various Alloys fertilizers medical apparatus and in power plants to produce the amount of pollution they release despite being mined for such a long time there's no sign it's anywhere near exhausted and current projections suggests there are many more Decades of supplies left and by that time it could well be the deepest open cast mind to have ever been dug number seven dimir nemine Russia the mirony mine which is also sometimes called the mere mine is an open pit diamond mine that could be found near the town of mirni which is in the Saka Republic region of Siberia and Russia Soviet scientists first found traces of a type of volcanic rock called kimberlite in the region in 1955 and this is usually a good indicator that diamonds may be present development of the Mind began just two years later and proved to be extremely difficult because the ground in the area would freeze during the winter and turned to slush in the summer a processing plant had to be built on firmer ground about 12 miles from the actual mine and this restricted how productive the mine could actually be still at its peak 10 million carats of diamonds were being retrieved from the mine every year with a fifth of them being gem quality open pit mining on the site ended in 2001 once the cost continued to far outweigh the return and by this time it had a diameter of 3 900 feet and a depth of 1700 feet as is often the case with mines like this there's long been suspicion that there are still many more diamonds in the ground and in 2009 an underground mine started operations on the site it's now in constant use digging far beneath the bottom of the mersey pit and it's expected to be open for at least another 40 years number six a Katara depression founder the Metro Government of Northwestern Egypt the Qatar depression is a huge sinkhole that's formed over thousands of years covers an area of around 7 500 square miles which is about the same size as Lake Ontario and it's so large that it's difficult to perceive it even when you're standing in it at a maximum of 436 feet below sea level it's the second lowest point in Africa and its floor is covered with sand dunes salt marshes and salt pans it's thought that it was formed by years of salt weathering and wind erosion and isn't the only structure like this in the region although it is by far the largest it's so vast that it had an impact on recent history in the country during the second world war for example it was seen as being impassable by tanks and as such it dictated where battles took place along its edges and still has active minefields to this day there are also plans to potentially use it to produce electricity because of the depths it reaches the Katara depression project will see a canal built to the area from the Mediterranean and C which will create a water flow that can be harnessed by a hydroelectric plant because of the high temperatures the water will evaporate so it can almost continuously pour in and will leave large salt deposits behind which can also be harvested number five Bertha Rogers gas well in the late 1950s companies across Oklahoma began digging into the ground in search of pressurized gas and oil deposits and soon they started discovering Rich reserves there was one Tycoon Robert Hefner III who believed even greater sources could be found at extreme depths and he risked everything by digging a well in 1967 that by the time broke all of the world records with controls on how much gas could be sold for a well of this depth was in no way economical but this didn't deter Heffner who in 1972 began work on what would become the deepest hole ever dug in the United States known as the Bertha Rogers gaswell that was located in Washita County and required the latest technology to even attempt by using a specially designed extra wide pipe they were able to progress at around 60 feet per day and once they reached the depth of 14 000 feet they began cementing a string of 14-inch diameter casings that weighed more than 106 pounds per foot by April of 1974 after failing to find any deposits of gas or oil the well reached a depth of 31 441 feet the pressures they experienced down there were enormous and temperatures reached 475 degrees Fahrenheit before running into a deposit of liquid sulfur which meant they could dig no further part of the hole was subsequently filled in and to this day you can still see the rigging place where it was drilled number 4. better of Kenya cave Georgia complex cave systems are often being discovered in places all around the world but on average they stay relatively close to the surface and are limited by the water table in terms of how far down they can go of course it's virtually guaranteed that there are many thousands of cave networks that are yet to be discovered and one that currently holds the record as being the deepest that we know of is the very old Kina cave in upkazia Georgia located in the gagra mountain range the entrance is at an altitude of about 7 500 feet above sea level and the furthest extent that's been explored of a cave reaches a depth of about 7 200 feet what's amazing about this cave though is that every time explorers go in there with the right equipment and supplies they chart new tunnels and cavities and it's quite possible that it reaches far further underground Journeys to the depths require diving equipment and stop-offs at caps in a similar way to climbing a mountain and can take two weeks to Traverse in One Direction so far more than four miles of horizontal tunnels have been explored at depth which include Caverns that themselves are more than one and a half miles long and is believed to represent just a fraction of what's down there number three the German Continental deep drilling program Bavaria Germany not all holes are necessarily dug to retrieve valuable material and several super deep holes have been excavated in the name of science one of the most recent is known as the KTP borehole and it was part of the German Continental deep drilling program located in Bavaria Germany the idea was to test a new drilling method and also to learn what conditions are like deep within the Earth's crust work on the hole began in 1987 and by 1994 when drilling ended it had reached a depth of 29 859 feet which is deeper than Mount Everest is tall while the project was unable to reach the region at the base of the continental plate that was one of its objectives it was widely seen as a resounding success especially as the conditions that were encountered were very different from what had been expected temperatures Rose far quicker in huge quantities of gas and liquid kept filling it up whereas the predictions at expected rocks that were far more solid because of the compression from the material above once digging it ended the hole was then repurposed for another use researchers installed a series of seismic sensors deep within and these were used to monitor the differences between the readings there and on the surface now the huge Derrick that was used which was one of the largest ever constructed is still in place and it's become a popular tourist destination in the region number two sauri sarinama in the southwest state of Bolivar and Venezuela on the border with Brazil there's a mountain that's long played a role in local folklore and more recently it's become one of the most geologically interesting features in the region known as Saro sarisari Naman it gets its name because it was once believed that an evil spirit lived there that when it ate human flesh would make a noise that sounded like sorry sorry even to this day it's remote and mysterious and it's 35 miles away from the nearest Road the mountain is a tip weave which means it has a flat top and reaches an altitude of about 7 700 feet and it's covered in thick forest it was only in 1961 when a plane was flying over the region that the pilot saw a series of strange structures on its Summit 13 years later a research team was airlifted up to take a closer look and they found four large sinkholes the largest is called SEMA Humboldt and has been measured to be 1155 feet wide and over a thousand feet deep what's amazing about it is that because of its ISO related location it's produced a unique habitat with a forest at its base and a number of animal species that aren't found anywhere else another one of the holes called Cima de la Lluvia is .84 miles long and was for 20 years the longest known quartzite cave in the world it was from exploring this one that researchers believe they found the cause of the sinkholes there's actually a Subterranean river that flows beneath the mountain and has for centuries been carving away the Rock from inside and could also explain the strange noises heard by locals which led to the development of the legend in the first place number one the Ice Cube neutrino Observatory Antarctica the more we learn about the wider Universe the more questions that are raised about how everything works and it turns out one of the best chances on Earth to detect one of the most evasive types of particles is a laboratory in Antarctica at the bottom of a series of deep artificial holes in the eyes known as the Ice Cube neutrino Observatory it's located at the Edmondson Scott South Pole station that's made up of 60 sensor modules that have each been lowered to depths of between 4 700 and 8 000 feet each of the holes were carved into the ice with hot water drills and the entire project is estimated to have cost around 279 million dollars the neutrinos that it's designed to detect are notoriously difficult to find as they rarely interact with any other particles normally many trillions of them pass through the Earth every second but occasionally they react with the molecules of water in Ice in the first three years of operation The Observatory announced they had seen the size of 28 neutrinos that originated beyond our solar system and this was seen as a remarkable achievement since then various other observations have been made that have hinted towards evidence of incredibly powerful events the most interesting of which happened in February of 2021 when particles were discovered that researchers believed were emitted during a tidal disruption event which is when a star travels close enough to a supermassive black hole that it's torn apart by the extreme forces it's subjected to I'll see you next time watch our binge watching playlist if you'd like to watch all of our most popular top 15 videos grab a drink grab a snack and get ready to binge

Channel: Top Fives

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Keywords: BIGGEST Holes in the Earth

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Length: 21min 14sec (1274 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 16 2022