Hell Found At the Bottom of Deepest Hole on Earth

With the amount of explorations humankind has undergone to find out what is going on outside our planet, it's interesting to note that we know even less of what is below our feet. That’s pretty much saying “we know nothing about our Earth”. If we haven’t even discovered enough of our own planet yet, why are we trying to fly out and invade others? On the brighter side of things, one discovery HAS given us a glimpse of what lies beneath our crusty earth. In Russia, on the Kola Peninsula, there is a 7.5 miles deep hole that’s deeper than the deepest point in the ocean, which, to put into perspective, is 6.8 miles deep. This hole is called the Kola Borehole and is, if you can believe it, a man-made hole.

Image credit:  World's Deepest Hole Barely Scratches the Surface. - Rosie Research

So why did people suddenly think that digging a super deep hole towards the center of the earth was going to be a good idea? Well, to put it into one word: competition. We all know that the US and USSR have been trying to compete with each other for ages, especially during the space race in which both nations tried to outdo one another in terms of space exploration supremacy. But little do people know that the space race wasn’t the only thing the US and USSR were rivals over.

In the late 1950s and 1960s, while competing who could explore outer space the quickest, Americans and Soviets were also competing for who could explore WITHIN the earth the quickest. As a result, both nations planned separate efforts to drill into the Earth’s crust, each with the goal of drilling the deepest hole in the world.

The American drilling project was called “Project Mohole” and was executed in the spring of 1961. The goal of the project was the drill into the Mohorovicic discontinuity, better known as the Moho, which is the boundary between the Earth’s crust and the mantle. The project wasn’t so successful though, because just five years later it was cut short due to lack of funding. After that, they kind of just gave up and let the Soviets win the drill-race. The Soviets started their digging process in 1970, and with the help of the Interderpartmental Scientific Council for the Study of the Earth’s Interior and Superdeep Drilling, they were able to be much more successful and drill the deepest hole in the world, the Kola Superdeep Borehole. By digging more than 7.5 miles downwards, they were able to make some breaking discoveries

Project Mohole

One of the benefits of digging so deep into the earth was that the Soviets were able to put geological theories to the tests. One discovery made was that there ISN’T actually a transition from granite to basalt between 3 and 6 kilometers beneath the surface as many scientists had originally thought. The basalt actually extended beyond the 12 kilometer point, which made scientists rethink their original theories about seismic-reflection results. In other words, the Kola borehole led to the discovery that an entire layer of the Earth’s crust doesn’t actually exist.

What’s more, at around 4.3 miles down the hole, cracks in rocks were found to contain water. This was an amazing discovery because no one expected water to exist at such great depths. It made researchers realize that the water inside the rock cracks were probably caused by

Hydrogen and oxygen atoms squeezed out and then retained below the surface because of the impermeable rock above.

Finally, one of the most amazing discoveries made through the project was the detection of life in the form of microscopic fossils found in rocks that were more than two billion years old. From the fossils, researchers were able to find the remains of 25 different species of plankton.  The discovery was very surprising because the fossils were surround by organic compounds that were tough against the pressure and temperature of the surroundings.

Sadly, the Kola Superdeep Borehole project was halted in 1994 because of a variety of reasons. One reason was because it was just getting way too hot down there. The temperature at the bottom of the hole was a scorching 356 degrees F, which is the temperature where food (or people) get cooked. This was such a huge difference from the expected 212 F that it was almost unbearable for people to continue further. Not only that rock density increased the deeper the hole was dug, resulting in greater porosity and permeability. In other words, it was like drilling through plastic rather than solid which made it very a difficult operation.

Kola Borehole Location

There are other hypotheses that are a bit more far fetched though. After the discovery of water within the hole, people started to believe that the hole was associated with the tale of Noah’s flood. According to text, it was believed that after the massive flood, all the water drained into subterranean sinkholes. Scientists previously questioned how the flood could have possibly existed if rocks weren’t porous and that they didn’t know where the water went, but this could be the answer. Now many believe that this additional proof that Noah’s flood story was not merely a tall tale.

Not only were people associating the hole with Noah’s flood, there were even persistent rumors of scientists getting scared that they would ‘drill through hell’ and that they ‘heard screaming from tortured souls’ The idea that the hole could be a passageway to satan’s lair could be another reason as to why the hole is now closed down and no longer in labor.

The hole is now bolted shut

Yes, you won’t be able to access the 7.5 mile deep hole anymore because it is now bolted shut and completely inaccessible. In fact, the whole area surrounding the whole is completely out of use. But you know what is really crazy? Although the hole seems to be extremely deep, if you look at it from another perspective, the hole’s entire depth is only deep enough to cover around .002% of the distance to the center of earth. So that means there could be a whole different world right under our feet. And even if we COULD tread to the center of the earth, do we really want to? Who knows what we’ll find there: alien-warded facilities, five-headed monsters, and maybe even hell itself?

5 Ancient Legends Based on True Events

Humans, above all else, are excellent storytellers. Myths and legends have ignited the imagination and fed the souls of human beings for thousands of years. The vast majority of these legendary tales are usually just stories people have handed down through the ages. However, as it turns out, there are plenty of old myths and stories that have more than a kernel of truth to them. In fact, a few of them have roots in real geological and astronomical events of the past, providing warning of potential catastrophic dangers that threaten our existence, while also speaking volumes to the awe we hold for the wonders of our planet.

So, here are five ancient legends from around the world that are somehow based on true events.

1. The Guest Star

The Ancient Story of “The Guest Star.” In April of the year A.D. 1006, witnesses from Asia, the Middle East, Europe and possibly even in North America, spotted what they described as a “guest star” in the sky. Astronomers digging through ancient texts have found lost records mentioning and describing the cosmic phenomenon. Among them is from the multipart opus “Kitab al-Shifa” or “Book of Healing” by the Persian scientist Ibn Sina, who is also known in the west as Avicenna. In the “Book of Healing,” Avicenna took note of a transient celestial object that changed color and “threw out sparks” as it faded away. What he saw started out as a faint greenish yellow light, which twinkled wildly at its peak brightness. Then, it became a whitish color before ultimately vanishing.

For a long time, the “guest star” was suspected of being a comet, but now, it has since been determined that the celestial wonder was really a supernova – a cosmic explosion that took place 7,200 years ago but whose visible light only reached Earth at the turn of the first millennium. In 1006 A.D., the supernova was far brighter than Venus and was visible during the daytime for weeks. At present, though its visible wavelengths have since dissipated from view, the high-energy remnants of the supernova can still be seen through NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

2. The Crater Lake and the Battle of the Gods

The Legend Surrounding the Crater Lake. The most common of the legends centering around the Crater Lake in Oregon involve two powerful mythological beings: Skell, the lord of the Above-world; and Llao, the god of the Under-world. The theme of this legend is essentially “good-versus-evil.”

The Native American Klamath tribe believed that the Crater Lake in Oregon was once a tall mountain named Mazama, which back then was inhabited by Llao. The underworld deity engaged in an epic battle with Skell, the sky god, and fire and brimstone flew across the skies between Mazama and the nearby Mount Shasta. Llao was defeated in the fight, and they had to go back to the underworld. With the intention of imprisoning him forever, Skell collapsed the mountain on top of Llao, before topping off this prison with a beautiful blue lake.

The legend was not exactly far from the truth. However, the crater lake was not the product of a battle between angry gods but Mount Mazama, a volcano that erupted 7,700 years ago. So much molten rock was expelled that the summit area collapsed during the eruption to form a large volcanic depression called caldera. Subsequent smaller eruptions occurred as water started to fill the caldera which eventually formed the deepest lake in the United States.  

3. The Myth of Rama’s Bridge

The Myth of Rama’s Bridge. In the Hindu epic the “Ramayana,” the wife of the god Rama, gets kidnapped and taken to the Demon Kingdom on the island of Lanka. With the help of an army of ape-like men, Rama, along with his brother Lakshman, built a floating bridge between India and Lanka. He led the army in crossing over the bridge, and successfully vanquished Ravana, the demon king, and consequently rescued his wife.

While this elaborate tale is filled with fantastical details, the mythical Rama’s Bridge itself actually exists. Satellite images reveal a 48-kilometer line of submerged limestone shoals and sand that stretches between India and Sri Lanka. The bridge separates the Gulf of Mannar located in the southwest from the Palk Strait, which is in the northeast. Some of the sandbanks are dry and the sea in the area is quite shallow, being only 1 to 10 meters deep in some places. It was reportedly passable on foot up to the 15th century until storms deepened the channel. Temple records seem to tell that the Rama's Bridge was completely above sea level until a cyclone in 1480 brought a huge storm surge into the channel and sunk it beneath the waves.

4. Atlantis

As first described by Greek philosopher Plato in his writings, this myth tells a tale of a civilization at its peak that tragically sank beneath the waves and got lost for all eternity. This great civilization called Atlantis is supposedly founded by a race of people who were half god and half human, and lived in a utopia where they possessed great naval power. However, while at the pinnacle of their power and influence, their home - which were located on islands that were said to be shaped like a series of concentric circles – was destroyed in a great cataclysm.

Atlantis was probably not a real place that have existed in ancient times, but a real island civilization may have been the source of inspiration for the tale. It remains heavily debated, but several archaeologists are of the opinion that the myth of Atlantis could have been based on the collapse of the Minoan empire.

Santorini in Greece is now an archipelago, but thousands of years ago, it was a single island – a volcano named Thera. Around 3,650 years ago, a volcanic eruption, which is considered to be one of the biggest in human history, rocked the island and led to its destruction. The vast magma chamber of the volcanic island was emptied so catastrophically and so quickly that the core of the island collapsed, setting off tsunamis that flooded much of Thera with the inflowing Aegean Sea. The eruption blew tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere where it lasted for years and potentially caused many cold, wet summers. Such conditions would have ruined harvests in the region, which is believed to be a main contributor to the quick decline of the Minoan civilization and why they were never heard from again.

5. Noah’s Ark

In the famous story told among Christians, Jews and Muslims, God, a long time ago, chose to destroy the Earth with a great flood but spared a man named Noah and his family. On God’s command, Noah built an ark and filled it with a pair of every animal. When God covered the Earth with water, it drowned everyone and everything that once roamed the land. Noah, his family and the other animals managed to survive while on the ark, and they were the ones that repopulated the planet after the disaster.

While a boat full of animals of every kind is hardly believable to some, experts say that the epic biblical flood - as often is the case with apocryphal texts - could have been based on a much earlier tale. One such story that comes to mind is the Epic of Gilgamesh. This ancient epic unfolds similarly to its biblical equivalent. In this Mesopotamian saga that dates back to the 7th century BCE, many gods conspired to create a great flood that will destroy the world. One of the gods, Ea, told a man to make a boat to save himself and the rest of his family, along with a group of animals.

So, with similar flood tales told in many cultures, is there any evidence that the great floods referenced in these stories actually happened? Scholars and scientific experts generally agree that there never was a global deluge as there is not enough water in the Earth system to cover all the land. However, some geologists think that the legend of a great flood may have been influenced by a catastrophic flooding event in the Black Sea around 5,000 B.C.

Geological records show that the Mediterranean Sea overflowed into the Black Sea, which is located north of Turkey. It forced the sediment barrier between the two to open in a very dramatic manner, and anyone nearby who witnessed what happened at the time would have seen the creation of waterfall 200 times the volume of Niagara Falls. In a single day, enough water came through the channel to cover Manhattan, and the roar of the cascading water would have been loud enough to be heard at least 100 miles away. And so, anyone who were living in the fertile farmlands on the northern rim of the sea at the time would have had the harrowing experience of seeing the boundary of the ocean move inland at the rate of a mile a day.

Myths are beautiful, breathtaking narratives and literary treasures of our past. But more than that, these ancient tales we have listed - and many other which were not mentioned - were able to provide important clues to our distant past. And these clues were helpful and crucial in filling in the gaps in our scientific and historical knowledge about geological and astronomical phenomena that took place on Earth in bygone eras. So, with the help of science, we can safely say that some tales are not just made-up stories passed from one generation to another; they could be true as well.

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Sources:

http://www.iflscience.com/environment/six-ancient-legends-that-are-based-on-real-events/all/
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ten-ancient-stories-and-geological-events-may-have-inspired-them-180950347/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160427-lost-supernova-sighting-sn1006-arab-astronomy/
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/tapestry.html
https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2002/fs092-02/
https://www.newscientist.com/blog/space/2007/09/bridge-built-by-monkeys.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam%27s_Bridge
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/evidence-for-a-flood-102813115/?no-ist