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Deep in western Russia, the frigid desert contains the remnants of one of the most ambitious scientific experiments ever performed.
在俄罗斯西部深处的寒冷沙漠地带中 有着人类进行过的 最具野心的实验之一的遗址
It's a ruin now, a wasteland of jagged metal and crumbling concrete.
现在它已成废墟 是个被扭曲的金属与坍塌的混凝土充斥的废土之城
If you search around long enough, you will find a rusted disc, bolted to the earth.
如果你仔细观察周围 你会发现一个锈迹斑斑的圆盘被栓在地面上
So unassuming that you might even try to pick it up. But you won't be able to.
不用猜也知道你甚至会想把它捡起来 但那根本不可能
It's the welded-shut cap of a borehole that plummets more than twelve kilometers into the earth,
这其实是一个盖子 用于封闭一个深入地下12公里
deeper than the deepest depths of the ocean.
比最深的大洋还要深的钻孔
It's the deepest hole on earth.
这是地球上最深的洞
It's called the Kola Superdeep Borehole, and its existence has nothing to do with petroleum exploration.
它的名字叫做科拉超深钻孔 而它的存在并不是为了 开采石油
Rather, when drilling began in 1970, Soviet scientists hoped to eventually drill down to fifteen thousand meters
相反 在1970年刚开始钻这个洞时 苏联科学家希望最终能够钻到一万五千米以下
in order to gain a better understanding of the nature of the Earth's crust.
从而能够更好地了解地壳的性质
Because the truth is, we know less about what's under our feet than what's on the other side of the solar system.
因为事实上我们对于我们脚下的土地的了解甚至还赶不上 我们对另一头太阳系的了解
They drilled on and off for twenty-four years,
他们不停地钻了二十四年
and though they didn't quite reach their goal when work came to a halt in 1994,
最后尽管在1994年工程终止的时候未能达成目标
the engineers had reached a record depth: 12,262 meters, a record that still stands today.
但这些工程师已经创造了最深钻洞的记录：12262米 这个记录直到今天都没有被打破
Two decades later, the Kola Borehole remains a remarkable technological and scientific acheivement.
二十年过去了 科拉钻孔依然是一项十分卓越的 科学成就
To drill it, engineers devised a new method by which only the drill bit at the end of the shaft was rotated,
为了钻出这个洞 工程师们创造了一种新的办法 使得只有钻杆末端的钻头在转动
the lubricant, in this case, pressurized drilling mud, was pumped down through a custom drill bit, allowing it to spin.
润滑剂增压钻探泥浆 则从特制的钻头泵入 让它能够高速旋转
Instruments had to be invented to take measurements at the bottom of the hole.
为了对钻洞底部进行探测他们也不得不发明了新的工具
What did we learn by drilling a third of the way through the Baltic continental crust?
所以我们从打通三分之一波罗地海板块地层中可以知道什么呢？
For one, there's water down there, at depths scientists didn't believe water could be found.
第一点就是那里都是水 在此之前科学家是不相信在那个深度是有水的
They suspect that the water formed from hydrogen and oxygen
他们怀疑由这些氢氧两种元素构成的水
that were squeezed out of rock crystals due to crazy high levels of pressure that far down.
是由于地下深处的极端高压 而从岩石晶体中渗出的
Unlike groundwater, this water originated from the rock minerals themselves.
和地下水不同 这些水是岩石矿物自身产生的
Never before had this been observed.
这种现象是从未被观测到的
Also surpising, how about microscopic fossils discovered by Russians at depths of up to 6.7 kilometers?
另一点让人惊讶的是俄罗斯人在6.7千米的深处 发现的微生物化石
Researchers catalogued twenty-four species of single-cell plankton microfossils over the course of the project,
研究者们从这些化石中找到了二十四种单细胞浮游生物
and they weren't found in the kinds of deposits we're used to finding them, like limestone and silica.
而且这些生物都并不是从它们惯常出现的 矿床(如石灰石和硅石)中发现的
These were covered by organic carbon and nitrogen compounds,
这些化石被碳氮有机化合物覆盖
preserved thanks to those high pressures and high temperatures so far below the surface.
多亏了地下的高压和高温 从而得以保存至今
As for those temperatures, by the time the engineers broke through the twelve kilometer mark,
说到温度 当工程师们打通到12公里时
where rock samples were dated at 2.7 billion years old, the heat became a major issue.
那里的岩石样本都已经有二十七亿年的历史了 而热量则成为了最主要的的问题
Researchers thought the temperature of the rocks would be about 100 degrees Celsius.
研究者们认为这里岩石的温度可以达到100摄氏度
What they found were temperatures in excess of 180 degrees.
最终他们发现实际温度达到了180度
It was this heat that caused the drilling to come to a stop.
正是因为高温导致了钻探的终止
Engineers described the rocks at 12 kilometers as acting more like plastic than rock.
工程师描述说12公里深处的岩石相比于岩石更像是塑料
Of course, as astonishing as this project was,
当然 和这项工程一样令人惊讶的是
the Kola Superdeep Borehole only made it through a tiny fraction of the Earth's layers.
科拉超深钻孔仅仅打通了 很微小的一部分地层
12 kilometers is three times as deep as humans have ever gone,
12公里已经是人类所能到达最深的深度的三倍了
but the Earth's mantle doesn't even begin until about 35 kilometers below the surface.
但是地幔的部分直到地表以下35公里时才刚刚开始
The mantle then continues for another twenty-eight hundred kilometers;
而地幔又还要延伸两千八百公里
the center of the inner core: more than sixty-three hundred kilometers below the surface.
而地核的中心 则要在地表六千三百多公里以下
Put another way, this borehole which took 24 years to drill,
换个说法就是 我们花了24年去钻这个钻孔
made it roughly 0.002 percent of the way to the middle of the Earth.
但也仅仅向地球的中心接近了大概0.002%
It's a big planet, you guys.
地球可真大
Thank you for watching this SciShow Dose, especially to our Subbable subscribers.
感谢您观看本期科学秀 尤其谢谢对于我们的 Subbable 用户
To learn how you can support us, just go to subbable.com to learn more.
学习怎样支持我们 可以登录 subbable. com学习更多内容
And be sure to check out our new channel, SciShow Space,
别忘了去我们的新频道 科学秀空间
for the latest in space news, and weekly forays into the fascinating depths of the cosmos.
查看为您提供的最新太空新闻 和每周迷人的宇宙深处揭秘
If you have any questions, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter, and as always, in the comments below,
如有问题 可到脸书和推特寻找我们 也可以一如既往地在屏幕下方发表评论
and if you want to keep getting smarter with us, you can go to youtube.com/scishow and subscribe.
还可以上 youtube.com/scishow与我们一起涨知识 对了 别忘了点订阅哦
