Hole Drilled to Bottom of Earth's Crust

[InTheSlot]

Originally posted by fotze@Apr 7 2005, 12:52 PM
http://www.livescience.com/technology/0504...arth_drill.html
The pipe they would have to use must be pretty expensive to deal with the heat.

Yeah really. I wonder how they test things like that to see if it can withstand extreme temperatures.

[Kidder]

Look Ma! I dug a hole.


I didn't read the article but isn't the mantle supposed to stay beneath the crust? Could not creating a hole for intense heat, steaming hot Mag-ma, and perhaps centre of the earth devil creatures to escape to the earth's surface be potentially detrimental?

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Hmmm, the claim on being the third deepest is a little strange to me as well, unless of course they are saying it's the deepset w.r.t. sea level or something like that. In which case I'd be interesed to know how deep the water was. If they are making this claim based on the actualy depth drilled, then they're wrong (as Fotze pointed out), cause I can think of about 200 wells off the top of my head that are deeper (guess what I do for a living )

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally posted by InTheSlot+Apr 7 2005, 01:59 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (InTheSlot @ Apr 7 2005, 01:59 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-fotze@Apr 7 2005, 12:52 PM
http://www.livescience.com/technology/0504...arth_drill.html
The pipe they would have to use must be pretty expensive to deal with the heat.

Yeah really. I wonder how they test things like that to see if it can withstand extreme temperatures. [/b][/quote]
Ummm, I'm guessing they heat them up, perhaps in some sort of furnace like contraption.

[Kidder]

Originally posted by Bring_Back_Shantz@Apr 7 2005, 08:01 PM
If they are making this claim based on the actualy depth drilled, then they're wrong (as Fotze pointed out), cause I can think of about 200 wells off the top of my head that are deeper (guess what I do for a living )

You challenge the validity of science journal articles?

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally posted by Kidder+Apr 7 2005, 02:09 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Kidder @ Apr 7 2005, 02:09 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Bring_Back_Shantz@Apr 7 2005, 08:01 PM
If they are making this claim based on the actualy depth drilled, then they're wrong (as Fotze pointed out), cause I can think of about 200 wells off the top of my head that are deeper (guess what I do for a living )

You challenge the validity of science journal articles? [/b][/quote]
I'm not sure if you're serious or not, but the article says that the well was drilled to 1400 or so m. So if they are talking about depth drilled, and not subsea depth as a referece for being the third deepest well ever drilled, then I'm not challenging it, I am outright saying it is wrong. The 200 or so wells that I deal with on a daily basis are drilled to around 2500 m. So this well isn't even close. However, not knowing how deep the water is, I have no idea what he sub sea depth is, and if that is what they are using for their total depth, than it may very well be the third deepest ever drilled. Either way, the article is incredibly unclear, and left out a pretty vital piece of information that a huge number of people would almost instantly pick up on.

[BlackArcher101]

I take it as 1416m from the sea floor. Like the others said, depends on how deep it is. I would assume though that they picked a deep section as to minimize the amount of drilling they needed to do.

To Kidder... the mantle doesn't turn to liquid as soon as it hits that inivisible line that you see in school pictures. It's a gradual change from solid to liquid. It increases at about a rate of 30 degrees C per km. At 5000m, it's about 150 degrees (according to my text).

[Kidder]

Originally posted by Bring_Back_Shantz+Apr 7 2005, 08:13 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Bring_Back_Shantz @ Apr 7 2005, 08:13 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

You challenge the validity of science journal articles?

I'm not sure if you're serious or not, but the article says that the well was drilled to 1400 or so m. So if they are talking about depth drilled, and not subsea depth as a referece for being the third deepest well ever drilled, then I'm not challenging it, I am outright saying it is wrong. [/b][/quote]
You need only look to my handle to determine the seriousness of my previous post.

[photon]

This is pretty cool. You can see a report here:

http://iodp.tamu.edu/publications/PR/304PR/304PR.html

Not that I understand 1 word in 10 in that, but there's some neat pictures

EDIT: I'm pretty sure that's the one.. from the same area where the article mentions they're drilling anyway.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally posted by fotze@Apr 7 2005, 03:10 PM
Well a quick accumap run shows there are 109,873 wells deeper than 1400 metres in Alberta alone.

If you correct for sea level the deepest well in alberta goes 4469 metres below sea level so the article just makes no sense.

Unless they were drilling in 3000m of water, but that doesn't seem likely.

[photon]

Looks like the holes drilled were about 1600-1800m below sea level (from that report).

EDIT: Some of them were 2500m below. Man this report is cool, I wish I understood it.

[Tron_fdc]

Well, pickle me silly but wouldn't it make sense to drill a well from the deepest part (or a very deep part) of the ocean? If you take the ocean depth at its greatest level, plus another 1500 metres, wouldn't that be a deeper overall depth than Alberta seeing as we're what.....3000 ft above sea level?

I dunno, I'm no engimineer mathematematician.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally posted by fotze@Apr 7 2005, 07:52 PM
Interesting, but I don't know about that deepest claim since I am looking at a 5300 metre well right now in the foothills.

Well you'd have to think they're talking about "deepest" as in, closest to the core of the earth, not necessarily the depth of the hole.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally posted by Tron_fdc@Apr 7 2005, 04:15 PM
Well, pickle me silly but wouldn't it make sense to drill a well from the deepest part (or a very deep part) of the ocean? If you take the ocean depth at its greatest level, plus another 1500 metres, wouldn't that be a deeper overall depth than Alberta seeing as we're what.....3000 ft above sea level?

I dunno, I'm no engimineer mathematematician.

I'm guessing they didn't drill at the deepest part of the ocean, because that kind of technology simply doesn't exist. I may not be 100% correct, but the deepest water ever drilled in is in the Gulf of Mexico at a depth of about 2200 m of water, that still puts this well at only about 3600m subsea, which is still not even close to the deepest well in Alberta. And if they aren't drilling for oil in water deeper than 2200m, then they sure as hell aren't doing it for research purposes.

[RogerWilco]

A search shows the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean is the Milwaukee Deep in the Puerto Rico Trench -8,605 m. Many parts are 6000m deep it appears so the hole must be measured from what ever depth the sea floor is. The article doesn't state the sea florr depth though.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally posted by Flames Draft Watcher+Apr 7 2005, 04:22 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Flames Draft Watcher @ Apr 7 2005, 04:22 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-fotze@Apr 7 2005, 07:52 PM
Interesting, but I don't know about that deepest claim since I am looking at a 5300 metre well right now in the foothills.

Well you'd have to think they're talking about "deepest" as in, closest to the core of the earth, not necessarily the depth of the hole. [/b][/quote]
Well you'd still have to pick a referenc point (such as sea level) because the Earth isn't perfectly round.

I'm thinking they meant deepest as in closest to the mantle (because the crust isn't the same thickness in all places. If this is the case, I guess that's pretty cool, but then there would be two holes that came closer, so this isn't much to write home about. Either way, I'll stand by my conviction that the article is either wrong, or written so poorly that they can't communicate what they are trying to.

[photon]

Originally posted by RogerWilco@Apr 7 2005, 04:43 PM
A search shows the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean is the Milwaukee Deep in the Puerto Rico Trench -8,605 m. Many parts are 6000m deep it appears so the hole must be measured from what ever depth the sea floor is. The article doesn't state the sea florr depth though.

The expidition report says 1600-2500m below sea level.

[Sammie]

Originally posted by fotze@Apr 7 2005, 01:52 PM
Interesting, but I don't know about that deepest claim since I am looking at a 5300 metre well right now in the foothills.

The pipe they would have to use must be pretty expensive to deal with the heat.

If that's a water well I'd guess you wouldn't have to spend much money to heat that water, would you?