Page 174 - (DK) I Can’t Believe It! 2

172
How deep

can we dig?

The deepest ever human-made hole Kola
Superdeep
is the Kola Superdeep Borehole, which Borehole
(Russia)
7.62 miles
was begun in 1970. By 1994, when the (12.262 km)
project was abandoned, the hole was
more than 7.5 miles (12 km) deep.

The center of the Earth is 3,959 miles
(6,371 km) below the surface. A journey there
would begin with between 3 and 44 miles The
(5 and 70 km) of crust. Below this are the deepest ever
fluid rocks of the mantle and the liquid-metal man-made hole
outer core. Each of these layers is more than did not even break
1,200 miles (2,000 km) thick. The inner core is through the Earth’s
794 miles (1,278 km) across.
thinnest, outermost
layer—the
crust.

Crust
Mantle

Outer
core

The boundary
Inner
between the Earth’s
core
crust and mantle in
Russia’s Kola Peninsula Mantle
is at a depth of about
22 miles (35 km).

US_172_173_309600_ICBT_How_deep_can_we_dig.indd 172 19/12/17 2:37 pm