The Deepest Hole on Earth

“Because it’s there,” the British explorer George Mallory once responded, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest. (It’s not clear if he ever got there.) During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union looked the opposite direction and launched rival projects to drill as deep as possible into the Earth’s crust. The United States made it about 600 meters; the Soviet Union, about 12,000—resulting in the Kola Superdeep Borehole. The project only shut down in 1992 after the Soviet Union itself went into a hole. Learn more about this project and others like it, then discuss with your team: what, if anything, should be the next frontier humanity tries to reach—and why? And are races—and heated rivalries—the best way to get somewhere quickly?

Twelve kilometres down, the rock reached about 180°C and flowed like putty, seizing the drill. Higher up, the cores held stranger things: water inside solid stone, fossils two billion years old.

Key concepts

Knowledge vs. Extraction: Two reasons to reach anywhere, and they lead to different places once you arrive. Kola was drilled to read the crust and produced no minerals, no oil and no advantage; a commercial hole would have stopped the moment it stopped paying. Which motive funds an expedition decides what gets left behind when the money ends.

Every work — at a glance

George Mallory (person)

The climber who answered 'because it's there' and vanished near Everest's summit in 1924; found in 1999.

+ 2 more works explained inside

What to know

01
Rivalry bought the speed and chose the target, and the Kola Superdeep Borehole shows both halves. Cold War competition funded a hole no peacetime budget would have approved and pushed it past 12 kilometres — then the goal turned out to be the record itself, so when the Soviet Union ended in 1992 the drilling stopped and the shaft was welded shut. A race gets you somewhere fast; it does not check whether that was the place worth reaching.

+ 1 more insight inside

Across subjects

Tennyson wrote the motto for this in 1833: 'to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield', spoken by an Ulysses who cannot stay home. When Scott's party died

Theme connection

"Are We There Yet?"

Are races the best way to get somewhere? Competition is the strongest accelerant we know — the Moon and this borehole both happened because rivals were watching. But it also picks destinations for their scoreboard value, and what survives here is a rusted cap over an abandoned shaft nobody has any reason to reopen.

Practice — a sample

HISKola produced no minerals, no oil and no commercial advantage. That MOST supports reading it as —

A An energy programme
B An extraction project
C A military installation
D A mining failure
E A knowledge frontier

Keep reading the full lesson

The remaining insights, works, and practice come with full access — $9.99/month or $29.99/season.

Unlock full access →

New here? Create a free account to read the free section.