So at some point in their lives, nearly everybody has wanted to dig a hole down to the center of the Earth.
The only problem is, nobody ever has actually dug a hole down that far.
This leads us to the question that this video is all about:
If humanity decided that digging a hole was the #1 objective of our species,
then how deep down could we actually dig with modern-day technology?
Let's say that we start somewhere on the Earth's surface and just start digging from there-
-not too far down at 1.8 meters
and we arrive at the standard grave depth in Western culture.
So if you are afraid of zombies, this is how far down they'll be coming from.
4 meters down and we arrive at the depth that pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered at.
A little further, at six meters below the surface,
we've reached the maximum depth that metal detectors can pick up signals from.
At 12 meters, we can find the deepest burrows dug by animals - the Nile crocodile.
A little further down at 20 metres and we arrive at the depth of the Paris Catacombs beneath the city of Paris -
- a tomb that holds the remains of over 6 million people.
Double that distance to 40 meters down and we can see the deepest swimming pool in the world.
If you drained this pool and jumped into it from the top,
it would take nearly 3 seconds before you would hit the bottom.
100 meters down is the usual distance that governments bury their nuclear waste at,
and just beneath that at 105.5 meters down is the deepest metro station in the world, located in Kiev.
Moving on to 122 meters down and we see the deepest known point that a plant's roots have ever reached-
- a fig tree in South Africa.
220 meters down and we arrive at the deepest river in the world - the Congo River in Africa.
Beyond that at 240 meters,
you can ride through the deepest railway tunnel in the world that connects the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido.
But at 287 metres down, you can drive through the deepest road tunnel in the world in Norway
305 meters down and you would still be vulnerable to the B82 Earth-penetrating nuclear warhead
which can destroy structures up to this depth beneath the surface.
Incredibly though at 392 meters, we arrive at the deepest well and possibly deepest hole ever dug by hand.
This is the Woodingdean Water Well in the UK and it was dug all the way back in 1862.
At 603 meters down,we arrived at something terrifying-
- the deepest vertical drop inside of a cave.
If you were unfortunate enough to be in this cave and fall down this hole,
the fall would be higher up than falling from the top of the One World Trade Center in New York
and the fall would take you over 11 seconds before hitting the bottom.
Even further down though at 700 meters is where the Chilean miners were trapped at for 69 days back in 2010.
970 meters down is the deepest hole ever dug that still has an open sky above it -
- the Bingham Canyon open pit mine in Utah.
This pit is so deep that you could place the tallest building in the entire world in the center
and still have over 100 more meters to the surface.
Much further down at 1,410 meters though
is where the deepest concert ever held happened by the band, 'Agonizer' in Finland
1642 meters down is the depth of the deepest lake on Earth-
- Lake Baikal in Russia,
and 1857 meters down is the deepest part of the Grand Canyon.
The deepest known cave on Earth is located 2,197 meters beneath the surface in Georgia
but the deepest hole that you could actually fall into goes
waaaaay
deeper than even this-
- All the way down at 3,132 meters is the bottom of the Moab Khotsong mineshaft in South Africa.
Taking the elevator takes 4 1/2 minutes to reach the bottom
but if you fell into it from the top,
it would take you 25 entire seconds for you to hit the bottom and think about what you've just done-
- long enough to receive and miss an entire phone call.
Even further down at 3,600 meters is the deepest point that a multicellular organism has been found alive-
- this freaky looking worm.
But human beings themselves have been even deeper than this.
4,000 meters down is the deepest part of the deepest mine on Earth, also located in South Africa.
The trip from the surface down to the bottom takes over an hour to complete
and the temperature at the bottom can reach a sweltering 66 degrees Celsius.
6000 meters is the average depth of the oceanic crust beneath the ocean floor.
Waaaaay
down at 8,848 meters is the height of Mount Everest if it were placed underground instead
10,994 meters down is the bottom of the Marianas Trench, which is the deepest part of the ocean.
I already covered the depth of the ocean in another video
but unbelievably humans have actually dug down significantly deeper than even this.
For reference about what's next,
11887 meters is the average altitude that a commercial airliner flies at,
but deeper than that at 12,262 meters is the depth of the Kola Superdeep Borehole:
A project where the Soviet Union attempted to drill all the way through the Earth's crust.
They only reached a third of the way there though because the temperature at this depth reached 180 degrees Celsius,
which was too hot for the drill to continue operating any further.
The hole is also only 23 centimeters wide, so luckily you can't accidentally fall into it.
If you dropped a quarter down the shaft though, it would take about 50 seconds before it hit the bottom.
Recently, however, this depth has been surpassed by the Z44-Chavyo oil and gas well
which has drilled down to a depth of 12,376 meters -
- that's the equivalent of stacking 15 Burj Khalifas on top of each other
and currently represents the deepest hole that humanity has ever dug.
The crust, however, can extend down to 70,000 meters below the Earth's surface
and the planets center is located 6,731
kilooometers
down.
If the surface of the Earth is Lisbon, Portugal and the planet's center is Astana, Kazakhstan,
then humanity so far has just ventured
this
tiny
insignificant
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