Posted on 08/06/2025 8:45:46 AM PDT by Red Badger
10,000 m = 32,808.4 Small Freedom Units or 10,936.1 Large Freedom Units.
Yes; I remember it being part of a science project I did.
China is digging a hole to reach my childhood home in Houston, I had already started the digging from my end.
Well, well, well. That is a mighty ambitious project and I can not even imagine what that drill bit is made of.
Deepest hold in the US is 31,441 feet or so, which would be over 9600 meters. It was drilled near Dill City, OK by Lone Star Oil and Gas Co. and was called the Bertha Rogers #1. Unfortunately, it recovered liquid sulfur (Brimstone). Oil breaks at about 17,000’ depending on the bottom hole temperature. Natural gas is a result and the recoveries can be tremendous, but expensive to develop.
I thought Oak Island was about Blackbeard’s Treasure?...........
They’ll hit liquid hot magnum! Wait, what? ;^)
Here’s a really bad movie I rented sometime in the past year or so, having remembered it from the preview at a drive-in when I was a kid:
Crack in the World (1965)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059065/plotsummary/
Bertha Rogers Roger Mills
The Bertha Rogers well is located in Washita County, Oklahoma, not Roger Mills County.
It was an ultra-deep oil well drilled in Washita County between 1973 and 1974, reaching a depth of 9,583 meters (approximately 31,440 feet), making it the deepest borehole in the world at the time until it was surpassed by the Soviet Union’s Kola Superdeep Borehole in 1979.
The drilling was conducted by the Lone Star Producing Company using the Loffland Bros. Rig 32, the largest land-based drilling rig in the world at that time.
The well was abandoned after drilling was halted on April 13, 1974, following the drill bit being melted by a pocket of molten sulfur encountered at depth, after 504 days of drilling.
The well produced natural gas until July 1997 before being permanently plugged and abandoned.
The precise location is near Clinton Sherman Airport and Burns Flat, with coordinates estimated around 35.31°N 99.19°W.
AI-generated answer. Please verify critical facts.
That was my first thought. GMTA
I remember my Dad being really intrigued by the project when I was a 10 years old. They wanted to go to 10,000 meters, but only got to 200! Fail. But it led to successful offshore oil drilling, so it was a huge success.In 1957, Project Mohole aimed to drill through the Earth's oceanic crust to reach the Mohorovičić discontinuity (Moho), the boundary between the crust and the mantle (commonly called the "Moho"). The intended depth of the hole was approximately 6 to 10 kilometers (3.7 to 6.2 miles) below the ocean floor, as the oceanic crust is typically 5–10 km thick (compared to 20–60 km on continents).
The exact target depth varied depending on the drilling site, with the goal of penetrating the crust to sample the upper mantle. In the initial test phase off Guadalupe, Mexico, in 1961, the project drilled about 200 meters into the ocean floor, but the full project was intended to reach the Moho, estimated to be around 7 km deep at that location. The goals was to obtain samples of the Earth's mantle. The project was proposed by the American Miscellaneous Society (AMSOC), a group of scientists including Walter Munk and Harry Hess, and was funded by the National Science Foundation. It was seen as an Earth science counterpart to the Space Race, spurred by competition with the Soviet Union after the launch of Sputnik in 1957.
- Objective: To drill through the ocean floor to reach the Mohorovičić discontinuity (Moho), named after Croatian seismologist Andrija Mohorovičić, who discovered it in 1909 by noting changes in seismic wave speeds. The Moho marks the transition from the Earth's crust to the denser mantle.
- Why the Ocean?: The Earth's crust is significantly thinner under the ocean, making it a more feasible location for drilling to the mantle.
- Timeline and Execution:
- 1957: The idea was proposed by Walter Munk and developed by AMSOC.
- 1961: Phase 1 involved test drilling off the coast of Guadalupe, Mexico, using the drillship CUSS I. The team drilled about 200 meters into the ocean floor, recovering Miocene sediments and a few meters of basalt, proving deep-sea drilling was possible.
- Challenges: The project faced significant technical difficulties, including stabilizing the drillship in deep water, dealing with fractured rocks, and managing high costs (estimated at $57–122 million).
- 1966: The U.S. House of Representatives defunded the project due to cost overruns, mismanagement, and political opposition, ending Project Mohole.
- Outcomes:
- Although it failed to reach the Moho, Project Mohole pioneered deep-sea drilling technologies, such as dynamic positioning systems and re-entry cones, which benefited the petroleum industry and later oceanographic research like the Deep Sea Drilling Project.
- It highlighted the challenges of drilling in deep ocean environments and contributed to the understanding of oceanic crust composition.
The scientific rationale for Project Mohole was to drill through the Earth's oceanic crust to reach the Mohorovičić discontinuity (Moho) and obtain samples of the Earth's mantle for the first time. The primary reasons were:
- Understanding Earth's Composition: The mantle, which lies beneath the crust and constitutes about 84% of Earth's volume, was poorly understood in the 1950s. Sampling it directly would reveal its mineralogical and chemical composition, providing insights into Earth's formation, structure, and evolution.
- Advancing Plate Tectonics: In the late 1950s, the theory of plate tectonics was still emerging. Drilling to the Moho would help confirm the nature of the crust-mantle boundary and provide data on the oceanic crust's structure, supporting or refining early tectonic models.
- Geophysical Insights: The Moho was identified in 1909 by changes in seismic wave speeds, but its exact nature (e.g., a sharp boundary or a transition zone) was unknown. Direct samples would clarify its properties and improve models of Earth's interior dynamics.
- Scientific Prestige: Inspired by the Space Race, Project Mohole aimed to achieve a landmark in Earth sciences, akin to landing on the Moon, by accessing the mantle, a feat considered technically challenging and symbolically significant.
- Technological Innovation: The project drove advancements in deep-sea drilling technology, which scientists anticipated would benefit oceanography, geology, and resource exploration.
By drilling to the Moho, scientists hoped to unlock fundamental knowledge about Earth's internal processes, composition, and history, much like how lunar samples later revolutionized planetary science.
It's curious that the Chinese are attempting this on land, not at sea.
They want to poison our precious bodily fluids?..............
Plate tectonics? Subduction?
Sneaky red devils.
I thought it was about the Templar treasure...
I remember the old Leonard Nimoy TV show, In Search Of..., doing a segment on it way back in the 70’s- 80’s............
It’s the DIY volcano that bothers me.Can you imagine getting this past the EPA and assorted environmental groups?
I know you are being facetious, but the earth has tons of cosmic stuff fall onto it annually. Its like when you leave your car parked for a couple of weeks and it gets dirty. Except, this happens over millions of years.
Plus plate tectonics and volcanism.
The earth is a dynamic thing.
Yeah, the guy in charge of that project is rucking a pack in Ukraine.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.